


Death By Chocolate

by dairesfanficrefuge_archivist



Category: Highlander - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-12-31
Updated: 2001-12-31
Packaged: 2018-12-18 06:04:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 29,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11868213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dairesfanficrefuge_archivist/pseuds/dairesfanficrefuge_archivist
Summary: By Ghost Cat, Palladia, and Wain





	1. Death By Chocolate: Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Daire, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Daire's Fanfic Refuge](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Daire%27s_Fanfic_Refuge). Deciding to give the stories a more long-term home, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in August 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Daire's Fanfic Refuge's collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/dairesfanficrefuge/profile).

Death By Chocolate pg 1/2

  


  


  


_Death By Chocolate_

By Ghost Cat, Palladia, and Wain 

This originally appeared as a Round Robin story on   
the Highlander Holyground Forum 

* * *

This story takes place at West Edmonton Mall, which means just about anything is possible. After all, this is a place that has an indoor amusement park, complete with triple-loop roller coaster, a regulation-sized ice rink, a replica of a Spanish Galleon, submarines, a water park, and a multiplex movie theatre with an animatronic dragon in the lobby. The Mall has its own security force, a mini police station on site and, most importantly, a fully consecrated chapel. So don't hesitate to do something just because you're at a mall, because this is The Really Big Mall, where nothing is strange. Of course, if you want to leave the mall, that's okay too. 

To make things even more interesting, the following story should include: tourists, a security guard; a parking lot, or the non-public areas of the mall; severe weather and at least one of The Mall's major attractions, as described above. 

Let's begin- 

* * *

The waitress was a bit nervous as she brought out the culinary work of art, which was unusual considering she was serving Death By Chocolate's best customer. The young woman known to the staff as Felicia was the type of person who knew what she liked, and wasn't afraid to ask for it. She had been working her way methodically through the entire dessert menu since the café opened; she was also well-known for leaving a decent tip and introducing new customers to the Death By Chocolate experience whenever possible. Her raven-haired companion was already a DBC convert, but the tall gentleman with them was a bit harder to convince. After several visits, he still just grumbled over the prices and sipped hot chocolate. 

There was a gleam in Deb's eye as the chocolate feast (and I do mean feast) was revealed. She smiled in anticipation, giving her tablemates a territorial glare that was only half in fun. Deb's skill with a sword was nothing compared to what she could do with a fork if she thought her dessert was being threatened. Amanda gave a good-natured salute with her own fork, while Duncan just sighed. 

Duncan knew that there was a special relationship between women and chocolate that he would never understand, but this was the first time he had ever seen someone go through a complete orgasm while eating a dessert. It started off with a low sigh that accompanied the first bite, building into rapid pants; none of which seemed to stop her from spooning more creamy goodness into her mouth. In the end, she was almost gasping, as if she could barely breathe. Amanda wasn't making such a wild display; on the other hand, the thief wasn't paying too much attention either. Suddenly the author gasped out a breathless "Check, please!" and slid gracelessly under the table. 

MacLeod and Amanda both looked at the now-empty seat in surprise, then their eyes met in a suspicious glance. Duncan gently lifted the distressingly limp body into a seated position, subtly checking for a pulse at the same time-nothing. Meanwhile Amanda lifted a nearly empty plate to her delicate nose and sniffed. There was a faint bitter undertone to all the heavenly sweetness; unless by some mind-boggling coincidence this recipe contained almonds, they were in big trouble. This was not going to be good for advertising. Death By Chocolate had just lived up to its name. 

\--The Ghost Cat 

* * *

**Round 2**

Nervous curiosity rippled through the patrons, and more and more heads turned toward the table where Duncan and Amanda sat and under which Deb had slithered. Amanda took another dainty bite of her dessert in an effort to look nonchalant. Then she flashed her most brilliant smile and began to reassure the other patrons. "She's fine, really. In fact, she does this all the time. The poor dear knows she shouldn't mix chocolate with her medication, but who can resist this place?" _Sotto voce,_ she urged MacLeod, "Help me get her to the ladies' room." 

Duncan waved off the manager and hauled Deb to a standing position as decorously as possible. He and Amanda half walked and half dragged the body of their friend to the privacy of the bathrooms. 

Once there, Duncan balked. "I'm not going in there, Amanda. That's the ladies' room!" 

"It's better than having her come around here in public," Amanda hissed. She looked over Duncan's shoulder. "Here comes the security force with a stretcher. Help me in here and then go head them off." 

Duncan scooped Deb in his arms and carried her over the bathroom threshold. His entrance sent a surprised woman bolting from the facility without even washing her hands. Propping Deb on a tufted chair placed in front of a mirror, he exchanged worried looks with Amanda and scurried out to delay the arrival of the security guards. 

"Well, I guess it's better than skulking around outside the women's rest room," he grumbled. 

Amanda pulled three rough, dimpled paper towels from the dispenser, folded them neatly into a stack, and dipped the corner of the stack into cool water. She dabbed the traces of Deb's fatal dessert away from the corners of her mouth. 

The violent and sudden inrush of air into Deb's lungs shocked her heart back into action. She opened startled eyes to the sight of Amanda's wry smile. 

"So, who have you ticked off lately to deserve poison in your dessert, dear?" Amanda queried. 

Debra's mouth opened and closed a few times and her mind struggled to make sense of what had happened. 

"Poison?" her voice quavered. The last delicious flavour of chocolate faded to a metallic tang in her mouth. She had never considered writing a mystery story. How was it she found herself in the middle of one? 

Before either woman could say another word, they turned toward the bathroom door in response to the unmistakable thrumming presence of another Immortal. 

Tag, you're it!   
\--Wain 

* * *

**Round 3**

The Eurasian cross makes such beautiful people, Amanda thought, irrelevantly, as the child stood with her back to the door, surveying the two women. The child's eyes were very dark, and much too wise. 

"The Rules say you can't interfere, once battle is joined," the child said to Amanda. "She's mine." 

"You don't even know who she is," Amanda protested. "This isn't the way we Challenge." 

"It's the way I Challenge. How else could I ever win? You're all adults, and I never will be. Still, if there can be only one, I will be that one." 

Deb was recovering faster, was almost ready to stand. "This isn't the way we do it. You need a teacher." 

The child smiled at the adult's naiveté. "I had a teacher. I had Xavier St. Cloud." She held a small globe in her hand, ready to toss at the women. "Now. . . Shall it be one Quickening, or two?" 

\--Palladia 

* * *

**Round 4**

Duncan smiled placatingly at the security guards and reassured them once again that no assistance was necessary. The paramedic was harder to restrain; only Duncan's foot planted firmly, insistently, and repeatedly persuaded him not to enter the ladies' room. A few frustrated moments later, the mall squadron took flight, which only left Duncan a few minutes of persuading the manager of Death by Chocolate that indeed, Debra was fine, and no, she certainly had no intention of suing him. 

Returning to the ladies' room, he visibly deflated. They still were inside? He loathed waiting outside the women's rest room, and he knew that Amanda knew that. Furtively looking left and right, he determined that no one was near the facilities, and pressed his ear up to the door. He heard Amanda's voice as well as Debra's, and a third, higher voice that he could not recognise. A thud and low, scuffling noises leaked through the door, and he threw caution--and his reputation--to the winds and pushed open the heavy wooden door. 

Next?   
\--Wain 

* * *

**Round 5**

_Oh Great!_ Deb thought to herself with a mental snarl. _What did I ever do to deserve the Bride of Kenny?_ If she ended up being banned from WEM for a generation because of this, someone was going to pay. Of course, that was if they survived the next few minutes. 

She hadn't spent years as Aunty Debra to 5 miscellaneous nephews and nieces without learning a few tricks against small opponents. With a vicious twist on a tiny wrist she wrenched loose the grenade. Still holding on the slim, squirming arm, she dropped the object--disturbingly similar to a toy ball--into the nearest sink, running water over it. Basic chemistry was a bit foggy in her mind at the moment, so she prayed that she hadn't caused even more trouble. A hissing, bubbling noise filled the air, but so far nothing else. 

Both hands now free, she lifted the devil-child off her feet, holding her in an extremely undignified position. "You should know, Brat, that being killed puts me in a really, REALLY bad mood. And, just for the record, I'm thoroughly in favour of corporal punishment for minors." The small body squirmed and shrieked in her arms, but it was no worse than holding on to an annoyed cat; Deb held on no matter what. 

She would have quite happily skewered the little fiend then and there, but her sword was hidden in her overcoat (which she fervently hoped that someone had recovered). In the split-second it took for her to remember where her dagger was, the child-Immortal twisted in her arms. Hanging upside down like a monkey, she snatched the inviting blade from her captor's boot. 

Amanda gasped a warning, but too late. Deb felt a wicked stab of pain in her thigh, her leg collapsing under the combined weight of woman and child. Leaving the knife lodged bone-deep into her enemy, the little girl wiggled free. She glared at Amanda, daring the woman to make a move. 

At that moment, the washroom door started to open... 

\--The Ghost Cat 

* * *

**Round 6**

Saffron mist poured from the basin, flowing to spread across the floor, and the snapshot Duncan's mind took before he slammed the door showed him one adult on the floor, one standing, and a small person with a monster's face hefting a blade. 

Grateful to the abalone divers who had taught him the trick of saturating his blood with oxygen so he could forego breathing, Duncan's mind developed the picture in more detail: Amanda was standing, and it wasn't a small person. The proportions declared a child, and the monster face was a gas mask. 

This time, when the door opened, he was inside at once, catching the child's wrists, indifferent to her struggles, forcing her to drop the knife. Amanda had her friend's arm thrown over her own shoulder, straightening to get Deb's head above the swirling fog. 

Leaning against the door, holding the child at arm's length, Duncan explained to her, "You have a choice: you can come with us, quietly, or I'm going to break your neck and carry you out. You can heal at your leisure. Which?" 

After the child went limp, he pulled off the mask, looking into a depth of hatred that made him blink. Her lips were curled back from her teeth, and he thought she might bite him, but she swallowed hard, and just glared. 

"Can you get Deb out of here? I'll get the car." 

Amanda nodded, and MacLeod carried the child cradled against his chest, as though she were his own. 

"A few too many creme de cacaos," Amanda assured the people who stared at the lurching Deb and Amanda, who carefully placed herself so the damage to Deb's leg was out of sight. 

When the elevator doors opened, the T-bird was there, purring quietly, and MacLeod held the child's hand engulfed in his own. She was coiled up at bay against the passenger door, staring at him. "Xavier told me about you. He said you were our worst enemy. You killed my teacher. Do you know what that's like?" 

MacLeod's eyes were bleak. "As it happens, I do." 

"What did you do to your teacher's killer?" the child spat at him. 

"We'll talk about that," he promised. 

\--Palladia 

* * *

**Round 7**

"You don't have to talk too much, though," she warned. "So you know what it's like to lose your teacher. Good. That's a damned good start, MacLeod." Her feral stare made an impossible contrast with her fragile limbs and delicate features, forever poised on the edge of adolescence, forever holding the traces of childhood. 

"But do you know what it's like to be completely alone?" she demanded. She felt his grip on her loosen slightly; her legs dangled against his knees. Pressing her advantage, the girl leaned close to MacLeod's face, the corner of her mouth twisting briefly in hate. "I'm going to keep coming until you feel what I feel, until you're completely alone, too. I'll start with your mall rat friend over there, an easy target," she nodded in Deb's direction, "and then go for your on-again off-again bed warmer," her head jerked toward Amanda. "She's got a weakness for jewels, you know?" 

MacLeod stared back with his jaw set hard, but the tiny Immortal felt his fingers relax just a bit. Just beyond the Thunderbird, a man and woman with two teenaged boys descended from a minivan. The Immortal girl shrieked and began writhing in Duncan's arms. Duncan was surprised to see tears spring from her eyes. Her screams rose higher and higher. 

"Help!" she screamed, eyes turned pleadingly toward the family, her face a mask of fear. "He's not my daddy! He's not my daddy!" She kneed MacLeod savagely in the groin, dropped from his startled hands, landed a punch to Amanda's stomach, and raced for the mall door. Through the glass entryway, Debra watched as the girl threaded her way among crowds of shoppers and disappeared. 

\--Wain 

* * *

**Round 8**

Stephen Savage was striding purposefully down the mall, trying his best to hurry without looking like he was hurrying. He was carrying a long canvas duster over one arm, somewhat awkwardly since an overcoat does not fold very easily when it's hiding a rapier. He was beginning to discover that there was a distinct similarity between being a Watcher and being a soldier; both involve long periods of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror. Already he was pulling together the chaotic events in his mind before he lost them completely. 

Savage had recognised the choking, gasping symptoms of cyanide poisoning while MacLeod was still hesitant and Amanda quite oblivious. But in the middle of a crowded, tourist-clogged Saturday there wasn't anything he could do about it. Scanning the room quickly, he was startled to see a small child, no more than 10, dart out of the kitchen area. Again, there was nothing he could do. 

Turning around, he saw an Edmonton Police Services foot patrol unit coming up from one direction, and Mall Security from the other. Wonderful! There wasn't a man on the Force who couldn't recognise his favourite former Chief's favourite daughter, and that was one can of worms that no one wanted opened. Part of a Watcher's duty was to keep the general public from knowing about the Game. That was his story anyway, and he was sticking to it. 

He had intercepted the uniformed officers, leaving MacLeod to take care of the relatively easier to persuade Mall Security. He quickly explained that he was an off-duty Security Guard himself, had seen the entire incident, and that the situation really didn't require their services. Some God must have been looking down on him, because at that exact moment the officers were called away to a vandalism report at the other end of the mall. Of course, no one would ever thank him for that quick-thinking rescue; worse, he had somehow lost track of his Subject. 

Which brought him up to the present, jogging down the mall to what he hoped was the right exit. Lost in thought, he didn't notice the small child until she had almost run into him. It was the same little girl he had seen at Death By Chocolate. She looked in his eyes with an anything but angelic smile; "Did you lose something? Or someone? Better get used to it." 

\--Ghost Cat 

* * *

**Round 9**

By the time the three Immortals got back to Deb's apartment, her limp was barely noticeable, and Duncan could walk without gritting his teeth. 

"One small child managed to hurt us all, and we don't even know who she is? This is ridiculous!" Amanda paced the floor, trying to work off the adrenaline jag compounded by a great deal of sugar. 

"Who would know who she is?" Deb wondered aloud. 

"I believe her when she says she was St. Cloud's student. She's got his method down pat. Disable first; kill later. He used confederates, too. Had a little alliance with a Watcher," Duncan was trying to make a graceful escape to find a phone. He had questions to ask Joe, and he didn't want to be overheard, but first, Deb had to be put on her guard. 

"Deb, you don't have to tell me, but be honest with yourself. Could your Watcher be compromised? That kid knew where to find you, knew your habits. Chocolate is a strong flavour, can cover a multitude of sins. If you'd been alone, she'd have had you. You and Amanda better stick together. I want to go for a walk." 

The door was closed quietly behind MacLeod, and as Deb slid the deadbolt, she turned to Amanda. "He wouldn't. I know he wouldn't. We've had our disagreements, but he'd never . . ." 

"Maybe he didn't know he was giving you away. Who would suspect that child of being dangerous? She's just a little kid, to anyone else. We know, now, but I wouldn't want to try to persuade anyone else that she's deadly. She's so pretty." Amanda remembered her first glimpse of the old-ivory skin, the glossy dark hair. 

By the time MacLeod got through to Dawson, the background noise of the bar and the impatience in Joe's voice grated on Duncan's nerves. He had made it a point to use a land line, so the call couldn't be overheard, and waited while Joe got to the comparatively quiet office. 

"What?" 

"No 'Good to hear from you, Mac,' or "How's Edmonton?" MacLeod was trying to keep the amusement out of his voice, to sound aggrieved. 

"Make it snappy. I'm up to here in alligators, trying to drain the swamp. What is it?" Joe was clearly not having a good night. 

"What do you know about a little girl, looks about ten, eleven, Eurasian, says she was taught by St. Cloud?" 

"You're a regular magnet for trouble, MacLeod, you know that?" There was a silence as Joe queried the computer. "Jeanne Bac Tho, French father, we think, Vietnamese mother, both killed at Dien Bien Phu, on opposite sides. Life as a war orphan was pretty bad, especially given her parentage, but she was a survivor. Got a few kills on her record, tough cookie. Why?" 

"She's in Edmonton, poisoned Deb. You're right, she's a real piece of work, sort of reminds me of Kenny." 

"Keep him in mind, Mac. She grew up in a bad neighbourhood. Don't underestimate her. Look, I've got to go. Busy night." 

\--Palladia 

* * *

**Round 10**

Almost before she finished locking up, Deb was furious. Shock had faded, leaving her seething with a dangerous combination of adrenaline, sugar and frustrated combat instincts. Rage searched for a target and found one--"I can't believe he'd accuse Savage of selling me out." She began pacing the small room; Amanda wisely stayed out of the way. "I mean, the guy's a little annoying... okay, very annoying, but he IS loyal. The one thing this man has is a sense of duty. He went straight from the military to 15 years in Security. It's all he knows." 

Amanda tried to calm her down; "Duncan's just worried about you." 

Deb latched onto the words. "He's worried about me. The man still can't keep from falling headfirst into the Small equals Innocent trap and HE'S worried about ME!?" Amanda's best efforts could not get the woman to sit down; mind and body were both wound up to a fever pitch. "Just because he was raised to be Clan Chief doesn't mean he has the right to play the leader role in every situation. I can take care of myself." 

Amanda grabbed onto both her shoulders, halting her restless wanderings. She looked the younger woman straight in the eye. "You died today. By definition, that means you weren't taking care of yourself. You're getting sloppy, falling into habits. He's...we're trying to help you." 

"That doesn't mean," Deb shouted, "that he can lash out at my Watcher behind his back!" 

A tiny smile; "But you can lash out at him, eh?" 

Deb opened her mouth, closed it again with a snap. Anger evaporated, leaving nothing but the cold hand of fear. "I died. I was murdered. I almost lost my head to someone who doesn't even come up to my waist!" She dissolved into tears, her knees buckling. It was all Amanda could do just to lower her gently to the floor. She sat with the poor hysterical girl for what seemed like hours, rocking her back and forth and listening to her sobs. 

\--The Ghost Cat 

* * *

**Round 11**

Good guerrillas are part of their land, Jeanne's mother had taught her, and this land was fatter than most. She thought the mall was the perfect place to live. Whatever she desired was here, or came here, and there were so many places to hide. She roamed the mall during the day, and curled up in some never-checked spot at night. Jeanne was amazed at the unbelievable wealth so casually discarded at the mall. She had all she could eat, clothes, shelter and a mission. With Amie, she was complete. 

There hadn't been very many Quickenings, yet, but she had savoured the special flavour of each one. Jeanne giggled, a little girl's amusement curving her mouth, lighting her eyes. "The next time she comes in alone, we'll have her," she said, conversationally. "We'll use a transdermal, put it in the soap dispenser when she's in Death's restroom. She'll wash her hands, and in a few minutes, she's ours. I like the TDs, don't you?" she remarked to her playmate. "They're easier to localise than the gasses." 

Amie had come to live with Jeanne when she was ten, scavenging garbage dumps. Amie helped her plan, told her how to use the habits of her prey to lead them to her traps. Jeanne halfway thought Amie was imaginary because she never saw her, but the voice in her mind was so clear, her advice so good, that she had finally decided Amie was her guardian angel. Pere Antoine had said everyone had one. 

Amie had led her to Xavier, who had looked deep into Jeanne's eyes and smiled in recognition. He had fathered her, after his fashion, taught her, provided her with adult company, gotten her a passport as his daughter. 

He had been endlessly patient with Jeanne, moulding her into a weapon with a very long fuse, to explode in the life of a man who could not harm a little girl. 

When Duncan MacLeod had taken Xavier's head, he had lit Jeanne Bac Tho's fuse, all unknowing. 

Deep within Jeanne's mind, Amie chuckled with pleasure in the hunt. 

\--Palladia 

* * *

**Round 12**

Deb awoke slowly, and in that foggy moment between one awareness and another, the feel of a Buzz kindled panic in her soul. It took her a moment to recognize Amanda, who had offered to sleep on the couch. Swallowing her heart, she tried to continue as if it were any other Sunday morning. As she reached out the door for the paper, she noticed a package leaning in the hall. It was a long cardboard tube, or a map-case. Written down the side were her name and address-Felicia's name, she noticed-but it was obvious this hadn't been through Canada Post. 

A quick hand grabbed her wrist just as she was reaching for the tube. "Don't touch it!" hissed Amanda's voice, "Haven't you learned anything?" Deb retreated a few steps, not entirely convinced. 

She scowled, "If it is a trap, you want me to what, leave it in the hall for the neighbours to find? There are a few people in this building who think anything that isn't nailed down is public domain." 

"I resent that remark!" 

"Amanda, you resemble that remark." Deb took another look at the object in question, noticing something she hadn't seen before. There were several brightly coloured postage stamps, but none of them were Canadian. They all had one thing in common though; "It's from Savage." 

The thief blinked. "How do you know that?" Deb pointed, careful not to touch it; "Falcons." 

When Deb turned around, Amanda was pulling on a pair of heavy leather gloves; she waved the younger woman back. Moving slowly, she examined the package and the area around it as only a thief could: checking for wires, needles, powders, or anything else unpleasant. She doubted it would have anything weight-sensitive; what if it fell over on its own? Satisfied, she dragged the awkward shape inside. Still with her gloves on, she opened one end, tipping it slowly as if she expected a live scorpion to crawl out-a trick that a paranoid noblewoman had played on her a few centuries ago. With a clunk, something long and heavy slid out; followed by a piece of paper. 

As the thief began slowly to unwrap the object, Deb's eyes went wide. She reached out, because that was where it belonged, in her hands. Amanda swatted her hand aside; "I said don't touch it. Read the note." 

Deb speared the paper with a pencil tip, holding it like a dead rat. With difficulty, she started to read. "The spelling is atrocious," she muttered to herself, "so it's gotta be real." Quickly, she scanned the page; keeping one eye on what she knew was being unrolled. "I believe this is yours. You left rather quickly, but it was understandable given the situation. I also have your coat, but I think it was more important that you get this first. Watch your head, and I'll continue to watch your back." 

She hissed a breath as soon as she saw the words. She hadn't realized how incomplete she felt without it until this moment. She looked down; Amanda was taking her time, checking for anything unpleasant. But Deb could already see a slim rapier, the perfect length for her height, balanced to be used in either hand. The hilt-grip was textured like a tiger's stripes, and on the pommel was a paw print, claws out. Without a doubt, it was her blade, a parting gift from Cassandra. 

With great effort, she pulled her attention back to the note. "PS: Watch out for a little Asian girl; I saw her twice yesterday. She's a little monster." 

"I told you he was on our side." 

\--The Ghost Cat 

* * *

**Round 13**

So excited it was stumbling over words, the voice on the other end of the phone finally slowed down enough for Deb to understand the message. 

"The Mall's hired us! It's going to be Mardi Gras North. One long masquerade party, from Friday evening straight through to Tuesday at midnight. The mayor of Edmonton is going to be Rex, and we'll put together the whole thing. This is going to be awesome!" 

Well, Deb thought, it's always nice to have something happening early in February. Amanda might like this; it's her kind of thing. Lots of unwary strangers with pockets, right up her alley. 

By the time she finally got off the phone with Sandy from the Live Role-Playing Society, she had the story: Ash Wednesday was February 13 this year, and they had the whole mall, itself a vast stage, to turn into a playground. There would be an advertising blitz, enormous crowds, and a good time would be had by all. 

When she filled Steve Savage in on this, standing in her living room, his jaw dropped and he said, "You're kidding, right? This is going to be a security nightmare. If you have any sense at all, you'll be miles away from that place." 

Deb stared at him. "You know, Steve, I'm not used to having my little pleasures dictated by some rent-a-cop. I'm also not interested in having my intelligence insulted by the same. And I'm especially not going to have my way of life dictated by some little brat from a jungle." 

"She doesn't want to dictate your way of life, Deb. She wants to dictate your way of death. I'm not your problem here, and I don't like being insulted, either." 

"My understanding of this business is that you're supposed to watch me, not watch over me. I'm not asking for your protection, and I'm certainly not asking for your permission to go." The fear that had never left Deb since her first encounter with the little girl at the Mall drove her to lash out at a safe target. Steve would be there, she knew, regardless of what she said or did. But she didn't have to admit that she wanted it that way. 

"Look at it this way: I can carry my sword openly. I don't have to wrap it in a coat, for once." 

"Yeah. And if she gets you anyhow, the LRPS can charge extra for the fireworks," Steve noted, smiling nastily. "And they don't even have to budget for it." 

"I'll have Duncan and Amanda with me. The three of us ought to be fine." 

"If it were a man coming after you, I'd be glad to wager on Duncan. But this kid? Do you know what the Vietnamese women did during the time the U.S. was there? They'd hand a baby to a Marine, and there'd be a grenade in its diaper. Children who could barely walk were mobile deathtraps. American men died, because they loved children. What odds would you give that Duncan could kill that child, if need be? Will you bet your life?" 

The more sense Steve made, the more fear gnawed at Deb, and the angrier she got. 

"You can stay away, if you're afraid. I'm going." 

Steve took one step toward Deb, his hands half-raised toward her neck, as if he intended to throttle her. She knew those hands well, and they knew her. Her faint involuntary smile of memory as she looked at them stopped him before he touched her. 

Without a word, he turned, opened the door, and closed it with the faintest of clicks behind him. 

\--Palladia 

* * *

**Round 14**

Deb had said that Duncan and Amanda would be with her, but in reality she hadn't even told the Highlander yet. She had planned to use Stephen's reaction as a guide to guess how bad the encounter with MacLeod would be. The reality was beyond anything she could have imagined. 

"Tell me again, you're planning on doing WHAT?" 

There was no hesitation in Deb's voice; "I'm going back in there." She continued quickly, before he could interrupt. "I know she's in there somewhere, and I can't allow that. The population of a small town passes through the doors of West Edmonton Mall every day. I'm not going to leave those people to the tender mercies of a demon-child who doesn't even know the meaning of the words! Would you let a murderer loose in Glenfinnan?" 

Something dangerous flashed briefly in MacLeod's eyes. "That's completely different! You're risking your life, your head, FOR A MALL." 

Too much had happened to Deb in a few short days; she was hanging on by a few frayed threads. Suddenly, one of those threads snapped. "Look MacLeod," she only ever used that name in moments of anger. "My home may not be as romantic as yours, and my clan might not be as noble; but this is my home, and this is my clan, and I'm not going to turn my back on them!" Beneath the anger was a firm conviction; "I'm not going to run, and I'm not going to hide." 

Duncan recoiled physically, as if he had just seen a kitten turn into a tigress. He proceeded a bit more carefully; "What do you have in mind?" 

Deb nodded, as if she had gained a small victory. "This kid's been keeping us on the defensive; she's using every advantage against us, and she's able to fly circles around us because of it. We need to start using our best advantages." 

"What kind of advantages?" 

She suddenly flashed her teeth, a predator's smile. "First of all, we've got a genuine, pure-bred Mall Rat. She was right; in fact, she has no idea how right she is. WEM opened its doors when I was nine years old; it's now celebrating its 20th anniversary. I grew up with the Mall, and the mall grew with me. I know that place inside out, upside down and backwards; and if she thinks she can use it against me, she's in for a surprise. Second, I never forget a Q. I've seen her, and I've Felt her; I will never be ambushed again. Third and this is the one thing she cannot know; in the right conditions, I can hear an Immortal pin drop. All I need is a quiet place to concentrate, and enough time, and I will find her. Even if I have to mentally search every square inch of that place." 

Duncan slowly shook his head; "And where are you going to find your quiet place in the middle of the Monster Mall, in the middle of a party from Hell?" 

Deb smiled again, "I'm taking a cue from you, Duncan dear. I'm going to spend some time on a ship." The Santa Maria: surrounded by water; open to the public, but hardly ever used; a place where, once she was settled in, no one would look for her. "I just need someone to get me in;" a gracious nod to Amanda "and someone to watch my back." A grin; "I'm still accepting applications for the second position. Are you in, or are you out?" 

\--The Ghost Cat 

* * *

**Round 15**

The plans for Mardi Gras as West Edmonton Mall were well under way. The purple, gold, and green theme and a goodly touch of French Quarter charm had been borrowed from New Orleans. Garish replicas of oversized beaded necklaces hung from the ceiling of the mall; the regulation balls on the miniature golf course had been replaced with glitter-covered ones, and a large dance floor had been roped off with a gleaming disco ball suspended from the ceiling. 

Jeanne reclined on her stomach in the secret tunnel at the top of the miniature golf mountain, smiling at Amie's suggestions. Reconnoitre, Amie whispered to Jeanne. You have to reconnoitre when the enemy changes the topography of the battlefield, and turn those changes to our advantage. We know this jungle better than anyone else; we're its warrior goddesses, and when we've lured MacLeod's friend here, he'll follow. Amie laughed. Jeanne just smiled; she didn't want anyone playing miniature golf to hear her. 

A good mall rat spends so much time at his or her chosen place of recreation that it becomes more familiar than home. The noise, the smells, the bright colours become familiar territory. But every mall has a different side, too, the working places behind the slick facade, consisting of a maze of echoing, bare tunnels for employee access, boiler rooms, and electrical panels. There, even in a mall full of Mardi Gras revellers, Jeanne would have the privacy to take her revenge on the man who had murdered her teacher. 

\--Wain 

* * *

**Round 16**

"We already told them that. But you know management." 

Professional courtesy among security specialists is likely to take the form of "I'll tell you my worst nightmare, and you tell me the odds." 

With a sinking heart, Steve heard that Jake, his friend on WEM's security, agreed with his estimate of the situation. It was entirely possible for things to go wrong at Mardi Gras North. Of course, they were taking precautions. 

Metal detectors at every entrance, no real weapons allowed. Stage weapons only. They had practically burned up their phone lines in communication with the New Orleans police, asking how to deal with the crowds in masks and costumes. Mall security was practised at crowd control, had defused situations before. There would be extra help, and some of them would be mingling in costumes. 

Jake was an old pro, and he figured they had things well in hand. He and Steve were sitting in a replica of an old Irish pub, slouched in opposite corners of a fireplace settle. The Guinness flowed freely, and in another half-hour, Jake and Steve would be telling war stories again. Jake was a lot older than Steve, and his war had been Viet Nam, mostly as an M.P. An Enforcer. An Interrogator, and if he got very drunk, he would admit to some nauseatingly unpleasant things. He could describe, in awful detail, the contortions a live human made when dropped from a helicopter. He could tell how the next man would become suddenly garrulous, and the man after that would say anything. He'd been the source of the grenade in the diaper stories, and knowing what he did, he had never had children of his own. 

The kids who frequented the mall liked Uncle Jake. His uniform pockets bulged with candies for them; he'd carry small children on his shoulders, because a man well over six feet tall is a great platform for a child used to looking at people's knees. 

To the teenagers, he was like a shambling bear, somewhat teasable, but not to be pushed too far. In summer, he would win small bets by palming a watermelon, and some could guess just what this meant. 

Jake knew Jeanne was a permanent resident, and he made it a point to keep an eye on her. His rounds were more extensive than she knew, and she slept in safety because her secret places were known to him. 

Jake had never met Amie, but he would have known her, too. He wore a puckered scar on his thigh where a tiny Viet Cong woman had nearly run him through with a machete. That had been her last act against the invaders. He had broken her forearm over his leg like kindling, and when he backhanded her across the face it had broken her neck. Jake liked women and children, but he had no illusions about all of them being cuddly and sweet. 

Jake bought the next round, and started talking about the steamy jungle. 

Any minute now, we're gonna get into the leeches, Steve thought, and shifted himself to a more comfortable position. 

\--Palladia 

* * *

**Round 17**

"The Largest mall in the world" needed a better slogan for itself, Jeanne thought. It certainly was the largest mall in the world, but it still needed a snappier name, like "the possibilities are endless" or "you can get anything here." 

"Including revenge?" Aime whispered inside Jeanne's head. 

Including that. All in all, it was the best jungle Jeanne had ever lived in, easier than the leech-infested humid hell she had gone so hungry in as a child. The perfectly controlled environment was so much better than a freezing, wet day in Paris, and the shoppers were more generous to a poor little girl who needed a few coins to make a phone call. 

Panhandling was hard work, though, and the easiest way to get money was just to fish it out of the fountains after closing. Most of what Jeanne needed she could get by helping herself when the sales clerks weren't looking. She found that a careful mix of scavenging, begging, shoplifting, and picking pockets kept her comfortable and clear of the mall security force. She was always careful to act as sweet as she could around the regular security guards, especially Jake, who looked a little less wary when she called him "Mr. Jake." Aime smiled sweetly, too, but of course Mr. Jake couldn't see her. No one could see her except Jeanne. 

Boredom was easily alleviated at Chapter's Books or at the movies. Jeanne wished that she had been reborn into an older body so she could get into the casino. Immortal life was a game, and it paid to practice your poker face. Food, clothes, entertainment, the mall had everything she needed. 

"Not everything, Jeanne, but I told you how to get what we need for Mardi Gras, didn't I?" Aime collapsed into high-pitched laughter. In fact, there weren't enough chemicals in all of the junior chemistry sets in the whole mall to get what she needed. 

"Dichlorodiethyl sulfide is our favourite, isn't it, Jeanne?" Aime asked. Jeanne nodded. Mustard gas wasn't a good enough name; golden death might be better. Aime had indeed found a way to get enough, and she and Jeanne needed a great deal. A misplaced credit card, a trip near the gourmet food court to place an on-line order from the row of computers promoting DSL lines, and then a request to have everything they needed for all of their traps and weapons mailed to the lingerie boutique care of that nasty blond who always shooed Jeanne away, and voilà. 

Aime shrieked with laughter again. She loved the word "voilà", and she had loved it when the blond got fired from the lingerie boutique for grand theft. 

The only thing that was hard to find at the mall was a space that was small enough for them to feel comfortable in. Aime didn't take up any room, and Jeanne only needed a little. She preferred tiny, cosy, dark places above all others, especially at night. Smaller places meant fewer places for Jeanne's nightmare monsters to hide, and Aime always ran away instead of helping her when the monsters came. The twisting tunnels in the miniature golf range were good; the children's furniture section of various department stores were good; the very best place with the lowest ceilings and snuggest interior was where Jeanne slept most of the time-the reproduction of the sailing vessel The Santa Maria. 

\--Wain 

* * *

**Round 18**

Closing over Amanda's hand, the fist was vast, and when its owner headed off toward the detention centre, she might as well have been shackled to a locomotive. She stumbled along, off balance, trying frantically to open her hand and let the wallet fall, but hand, wallet and all were engulfed in that huge paw. 

In front of cameras at the detention area, her captor casually shook and squeezed her wrist, and the wallet fell to the desk, undeniably out of her hand. Amanda stared at it with her best expression of shocked disbelief, but her captor wasn't even looking at her. Jake had Amanda's arm caught between his elbow and his ribcage, immovably trapped. She was left staring at his shoulder blades, wishing for the stiletto she'd dutifully left at home. 

He flipped open the wallet, and pulled out a driver's license. "George? Would you please page a Mr. Jack Stevens, and ask him to come to a courtesy phone? We have something of his." 

"This is a mistake!" Biting the inside of her cheek, Amanda began to cry, hunched over in the chair where Jake had carefully seated her. 

"No, miss. This is no mistake. I've been watching you, and Elaine, here, is going to escort you to the search area. There's enough money in this wallet to make this a felony. I think Elaine will find other things. The hospitality of detention is a little limited right now, but you'll be all right." 

"But, I'm supposed to meet friends for lunch!" 

"You're going to be having lunch here. You'll be arraigned this afternoon, and barred from the mall." 

Amanda immediately relaxed. Arraigned? Oh, well, Duncan could make bail for her and how could they hope to bar her from the mall with the costumed Mardi Gras revelers pouring in? 

But by the time she stood in front of the magistrate, she still hadn't been able to reach Duncan. Since she had no record that Mall security could find, bail was set fairly low. Amanda handed the bondsman a credit card, and hoped for the best. 

She had been amused, at first, by the gleaming braid of tungsten steel that had locked onto her right wrist, but she summoned up her finest indignation. "What do you think you're doing? This is a free country." 

"Yes, ma'am," the bailiff said. "This is a free country. But the West Edmonton Mall is private property, and we can exclude people. Have a nice day." 

It was Elaine, stocky, red-haired, and very calm, who escorted her to the nearest exit, smiled cheerfully as the metal detectors whooped at the bracelet, and waved at Amanda's departing back. 

Amanda got back to Deb's apartment, fished a needle out of a sewing kit, and set to work left-handed on the bracelet's lock, hidden under the medallion of the mall's logo. Two hours later, when Duncan and Deb turned up, she was no closer to opening it than at the beginning, and the bracelet was too snug to allow a shear blade to slip under it. 

"Paris? What do you mean, Paris?" Duncan asked. "Deb's going to need you to be with her in this thing. You can't just decamp now!" 

"Duncan, I've seen the mall, and I've been to so many carnivals, and I just need a change." 

Deb eyed her cannily, listening, and came up to take Amanda's hand, holding it up to expose the gleaming bracelet. 

"You got caught, didn't you?" 

\--Palladia 

* * *

**Round 19**

Amanda's pert lips were pressed into a little moue of worry and confusion; Duncan scowled more than usual as he handed over his weapon. Only Deb seemed relaxed as they stepped into the room. 

"Are you going to tell us," Duncan growled, "why we're at the Blade now of all times?" 

"We're here to take care of 'Manda's new fashion statement. Now, do you trust me or not?" It was the middle of the day, and so the Bonded Blade was fairly quiet. Deb waved to the bartender, hoping to talk to the man alone. 

Dave's quick grin faded as he noticed the look on her face; "I was wondering how long it would take until you needed to ask me for more than just a drink. What can I do to help?" Deb seemed relieved; quickly, she explained her problem-or rather, she explained Amanda's problem. When the man nodded, she waved the other two into the conversation. 

Dave frowned as he rubbed his fingers across the metal band; he tried to scratch it with his thumbnail. "It's doable," he mumbled to himself, barely audible. Reaching under the bar, he came up with a glass jar, filled with a clear liquid along with some equipment that looked technical in nature. MacLeod saw the label first, and his eyes widened in surprise; their eyes met for a moment, and the bartender spoke in level tones. "I assume you know how to use this safely?" Duncan nodded slowly; the man finally let go of the items. 

Deb was slightly less surprised by the unexpected appearance of a supply of Hydrochloric Acid; in fact, she seemed vaguely amused. "Do I even want to know why you're keeping industrial chemicals under the bar?" 

The bartender shrugged and grinned. Dave's grins were known to make strong men nervous. "Just mixing up some specialty drinks. You've got to be able to give the customers what they want." Turning back to the Highlander, he nodded toward the back of the pub. "Down the hall, when you see the washrooms, turn left instead of right." Duncan gave the author one last doubtful look before taking Amanda to the back room. 

Deb's attitude toward the bartender changed instantly as soon as they were alone. "How long have you known?" 

He flashed that same unnerving smile; "I recognised you the day you walked in that door, I just made sure I didn't tell myself what I knew." 

Deb laughed for the first time since this whole nightmare started, "Spoken like a veteran Role Player." Dave was an old Gaming buddy, old in this case meaning pre-death. "You don't have a problem with any of this, then?" 

"If I did, would I be working in a bar for Immortals?" Dave used the word first, and quite casually. "This is the most fun I've had in years." Before he was a bartender, he had been chemist; as a matter of fact, he was just a stone's throw away from fitting the description of a mad scientist. He freely admitted that he learned chemistry to be able to mix explosives in his bathtub; he considered Survivalist training to be a fun hobby. He was never more than two seconds away from a sharp knife, and he had once built a fully functional black-powder rifle (which he then used to go hunting). 

If anyone could help Deb against a guerrilla opponent, he could. She told the entire story; every ugly detail about the situation, the demon-child, even Xavier. The man didn't even blink, launching immediately into a long conversation about chemical warfare and countermeasures. By the time they left the Blade, Amanda had her freedom back, and Deb had more information than she'd ever hoped for. That, and a couple of phone numbers scribbled on a napkin. For the first time, she felt like she was in control of the situation. 

\--The Ghost Cat 

* * *

**Round 20**

Anyone who had been standing outside of the employee lounge at the Bonded Blade might have assumed that an afternoon tryst was going on. The dark-haired, attractive couple entered hastily and closed the door firmly. 

"My arm doesn't bend that way!" the female voice had protested. 

The rustle of clothing was followed by barely controlled moans and hissing intakes of air. A higher-pitched near scream was met with the man's urgent whisper, "Don't move!" After that, a wordless expression of triumph from the woman's voice and a shuddering gasp from the man's. Within moments, the pair left the lounge, she flushed and perspired, he helping her to arrange her disheveled clothing. 

They had joined Deb and Dave at the bar. Rubbing his left eye and staring balefully at Amanda with his right, MacLeod accused, "You didn't have to pull back quite so hard with your elbow, you know." 

"You didn't expect me to keep my hand in the HCL a millisecond longer than necessary, did you?" she answered testily. 

MacLeod set the jar of hydrochloric acid on the bar top and thanked Dave. "You won't have to worry about clogged pipes in there for a while," he informed the bartender, still rubbing his sore eye. If he had concentrated less on his eye and more on Deb's furtive movement, he might have seen her slip the folded napkin into her pocket. 

As it was, Duncan and Amanda had to wait until they returned to Deb's apartment to hear her plan unveiled. 

"You can't do it!" MacLeod's voice was angry. "You can't really believe that you're going to . . . what, immobilise her with some sort of James Bond knock-out gas and kidnap her and deprogram her?" He began pacing furiously back and forth in Deb's living room. Amanda wisely stood out of the line of fire. 

Deb was just as angry, "We've been through this before, Duncan. I will not let her hurt all those people!" 

"I never said that you would. But you can't bring her here to your house and just give her a few hugs to fix the traumas from her childhood. She's a sociopath, Deb. Your intentions are good, but you're way out of your league. You're playing with fire," Duncan warned her. 

Deb put herself directly in Duncan's path and challenged, "And what do you think we should do? She's a little kid, Duncan. Someone ought to give her a chance for a better life." 

Duncan's eyes burned into Debra's. "She's not a little kid, Deb. She's an experienced Immortal who's racked up an impressive number of kills. You don't try to rescue her; you treat her as you would any other Immortal." 

"You can't be serious!" Deb protested. "Duncan MacLeod, don't try to tell me that you could kill that child." 

MacLeod resumed pacing and refused to meet Debra or Amanda's gaze. He swallowed hard and answered, "If I had to." 

\--Wain 

* * *

**Round 21**

"If you plan on getting her to rejoin the human race, you don't need a shrink, you need a Jesuit!" Joe Dawson said. 

Knowing he had no chance to deter her when Deb explained her idea, Steve had simply called Dawson, hoping that he could. So Joe had turned up on Deb's doorstep, and now sat listening to her plans for rehabilitating Jeanne. 

Boxes of Chinese food littered the table, and the chopsticks had been very busy. The council of war was not in favour of the idea. 

"Deb. It's not just that she isn't sane, that she had a bad childhood, or that Xavier was her teacher. There's something else on the books, something that predates St. Cloud. A Dark Quickening, maybe, collected when she was very young. This wouldn't be just 'make nice and she'll come around.' This would be more in the nature of an exorcism." Joe's knowledge of the Immortal records was extensive, and his experience as a Watcher was what Steve had thrown into the pot, hoping to raise the stakes beyond Deb's reach. 

In the silence that followed, while Deb was marshalling her thoughts to refute this, Duncan stood, stretched lazily as a big cat, lounged over to her chair, caught her by the elbows, and jerked her suddenly to her feet to face him. 

"You're not old enough. You haven't been in the Game long enough, and you don't know what you're doing. 

"There was this friend of mine, a hayoka, and he. . ." the hands that had so effortlessly lifted Deb up out of the chair were tightening painfully on her elbows, and the dark eyes she shrank from were those of some stranger. Suddenly, he shoved her away from himself, back into the chair, and stuck his hands deep into his pockets. "Remember those old medieval maps that would show, at the ends of what they knew, 'Here There Be Monsters?'" 

"Deb, there _are_ monsters. Not the cartographers' notions of sea dragons, or some cut-and-paste combination of human and animal. There are demons who sing to your own soul, until the devils you know meet the devils you don't know, and they all drink you down." 

Duncan moved to hunch over her in the chair, his hands on the wings of it, and she could hear the wood protesting the pressure of his twisting. She sat very still, hardly breathing, hoping this not-Duncan thing would somehow go away. His face was twisted, no longer handsome, and she saw an elemental hatred staring at her. 

Then, slowly, in the silence of the room, it ebbed away, and he shook himself like a wet dog. He looked around as if surprised at his surroundings, turned away, and left. 

"Maybe that Jesuit would give us a quantity discount, what d'ya think?" Joe Dawson offered, as everyone's breathing evened out again. 

\--Palladia 

* * *

**Round 22**

As a Series fan, Deb often allowed herself to mix fantasy with reality; making assumptions based on what she thought she knew, about the Game, about Immortals, about MacLeod. She forgot that most of the "canon" was wrong, and that those parts that were true had come from real life-and-death experience, not stage-fighting and special effects. 

What blazed from MacLeod's dark eyes was real, deadly real. She cringed away from the full fury of something that was both more than, and less than, human; but her mind shrank back even further. Back to the quiet, young girl whose weakness had been a magnet for bullies for 9 years of her life; to the dark corner under the stairs where she had cowered whenever her parents argued; to the 6 foot plus of her cop father towering over her, shouting that he wouldn't help her until she stopped crying. It took all her strength not to hide in that dark mental corner and stay there. 

Everyone here recognised that her plan to "save" Jeanne was a desperate one, but no one imagined from where that desperation had sprung. It went beyond the fear of pain and death, the thought of finally being thrust into the Game. From that first moment in DBC, she knew that she could kill that little girl; that there was a part of her that would enjoy it. The part of her that hid in that dark corner, that had seen too many bullies, lived too long in terror. The part of her soul that found the solid weight of a blade in her hand, and the knowledge of how to use it, to be very seductive indeed. The sight of that hatred, that violence, in MacLeod's eyes was almost as terrifying as seeing it in the mirror. 

It was time to throw aside the illusions, stop reaching for that happy ending. She had seen the truth, and now she had to accept it-to embrace it. "He's right," she whispered, forcing out the words. "This isn't a story, this is the Game and, like it or not, I'm in it. I have met my enemy, and between us there can be only one." 

\--The Ghost Cat 

* * *

**Round 23**

Deb recognised where she was before she was even certain how she had gotten there. The first step in meditation is to find a focus point, a spiritual center, a sanctuary. It wasn't too surprising that Deb's mental sanctuary had taken the form of a Library. She knew her Library instantly: the warm, inviting smells of leather and ink and old paper; big overstuffed chairs awaiting someone to stop and read; a fireplace in the corner where you can snuggle by a crackling fire. Oaken tables, writing desks, and, of course, books: sturdy wooden bookshelves so high that there was a balcony half way up, so tall that you needed a ladder to reach the top. It was a reader's paradise, and a writer's dream. 

Finding herself here was like coming home after a long journey, she felt at peace. "I'm dreaming." Taking in the familiar surroundings, she noticed on a table a book she didn't recognise. It was bound in traditional leather, but it looked newly printed: blood red letters on a cover as black as night proclaimed Tales of the Northlander. She still tongue-in-cheek called herself the Northlander from time to time, mostly when she felt like irritating MacLeod. Was her subconscious trying to tell her something about herself? She opened to a page at random, finding only 2 words: The End. She turned the page, only to find the same thing; she flipped through the book faster and faster, but every page was the same. She shouted a heart-rending "No!" throwing the offending tome into the fire. A massive explosion belched forth from the quiet little hearth, and the books began to burn. Beneath the roar of the all-consuming flame, she heard the high-pitched tones of a child's laughter. 

\--The Ghost Cat 

* * *

**Round 24**

"Steve, there's nothing you can do." MacLeod heard the footsteps approaching, the slight favouring of a game leg, turned a little to forestall the awkwardness of Steve trying to grab his arm to stop him. 

By the time he caught up to MacLeod on the street, he found a very different person from the man he'd pursued to chew out. There's a certain level of chameleon to MacLeod, Steve thought. I guess there'd have to be. 

"There's not much I can do, either," MacLeod continued. "Once battle is joined. . ." 

"You think it will destroy her, either way, don't you? Damned if she does, damned if she doesn't." 

"Pretty much," MacLeod said. "We all have to come to terms with the Game somehow. If she's determined that she's going to spread her wings over that mall, she dare not step back. To know yourself for a killer is a terrible thing. To know yourself for a coward is a bit worse. Any place around here a man could get a drink?" 

"Cop bar down the street." Steve replied. It was Reilly's, the pseudo pub where he usually met Jake. 

Sure enough, Jake was there, playing darts. 

"MacLeod, huh? There were MacLeods beside us at Culloden," Jake said when Steve introduced Mac. 

"You don't look quite old enough to have seen Culloden," MacLeod said, grinning at the man. 

"Not me. My several-times-great-grandfather." 

"MacDonald, then?" 

"Chisholm. At your service." 

MacLeod's eyes sharpened, suddenly, remembering. It had been Laird Chisholm's son, barely conscious and minus an arm, that he'd boosted onto a horse and sent off into the haze of gunsmoke in the general direction of Inverness, figuring he'd die anyhow, but maybe not. 

The old laird had been cut in half by grapeshot, but the son must have beaten the odds. 

This man had the look of the Chisholms, Duncan thought. Sandy hair, curling crisply, greying now. The same blue eyes. A massive wall of a man with a lopsided grin of good nature, a good man to know in a crunch. 

"So. . . what are you doing with yourself? MacLeod asked Jake. 

"Security - I keep an eye on the Mall." 

Amanda had given a very good, if somewhat profane, description of the man who had interrupted her day's shopping: clearly, Jake. 

"Really! Is it interesting?" 

"Some days. Mostly it's just routine. Keeping the customers happy." Without seeming to pay much attention, Jake set four darts very near the center of the board. 

An ordinary night in a bar, MacLeod thought. Some Guinness, toss a few darts. Good company. If just it didn't feel like the calm before the storm, he considered, I'd like it a whole lot better. 

How, Mac wondered, can I make this Chisholm as good an ally as his forefather was? 

\--Palladia 

* * *

**Round 24 B**

Every writer knows the importance of research, and any published author will tell you that success comes as much from strong networking as a good story. After long planning session with her friends in LRPS, not to mention consultations with several SCA members, Deb's "costume" was complete -- heavy leather from head to toe; from riding boots to high-necked collar. It would never stop a well-made blade, but it was enough to slow down the blow, and maybe absorb some of the damage. They had talked a bit about chain mail, but in the end decided it would be too heavy, too impractical and ultimately slow her down. 

That was the great thing about these people, she could casually discuss the topic of combat without raising suspicions. A seemingly hypothetical conversation about strategy against Dwarves led to a useful suggestion: reinforced knees and ankles would protect against guerrilla hamstringings. Luckily, Jeanne just didn't have the size to be a backstabber. In the end, she had armour that was both practical and beautiful; even Amanda was impressed. 

If only physical attacks were all she had to worry about, this would be easy. Her second level of defence had been more of a challenge. It had taken almost every contact Dave could provide to get what she needed; not to mention money, persuasion and favours owed. After much effort though, her tiger mask hid an air-filter system that could absorb the most common chemical and biological agents. That would protect her, but what about everyone else? She tried not to think about it. 

MacLeod watched her activities with a mixture of admiration and dread. Over the last few days she had proven that she could take the situation seriously when the need arose. She was practical, efficient, not at all impulsive—in short, completely at odds with the young Free Spirit he knew and loved. She didn't laugh, rarely smiled; she had stopped trying to make jokes to hide her fear. Duncan's heart clenched when he saw what she was becoming. What was the good in saving someone's life if you destroyed their soul in the process? 

Deb had stopped reading fiction, but that wasn't the worst part. He had come to her at the end of a particularly hard day. "You need a break, my Debra Campbell," he told her, false-casual. "When was the last time you tried to write?" 

Something of the old Debra flickered across her face for just a second, then disappeared. "Why bother?" Her voice was cold. "I write what I know, and what I know now is too ugly to put down on paper." 

Duncan had to turn around quickly to hide the tears that sprang to his eyes. _My Lord, what have I done?_

\--The Ghost Cat 

* * *

**Round 25**

On Friday, February 23, the day dawned late and steely grey, with a tell-tale scent of snow in the air. At West Edmonton Mall, the finishing touches for the day's grand opening ceremony for Mardi Gras were underway. At Debra Campbell's apartment, final plans were also being put into place. 

By lunch, Deb had managed to overcome the last unsettling effects of her terrifying nightmare. As she watched Duncan MacLeod and Joe Dawson, her foot tapping restlessly on the floor, she felt her youth keenly. They both exhibited the inward focus and quiet readiness of men who had been tested by battle too many times and who knew how to wait. 

Steve had left Deb's earlier in the day after unsuccessfully trying to dissuade her from going to the mall. 

"How do you even know that Jeanne will try anything today?" he had demanded. "Wouldn't she wait until Tuesday night, when the biggest crowd will be there?" 

"She could wait until Tuesday. And it's also possible that she'll make her move today," MacLeod had answered, switching his gaze from the coffee cup he held in his hand to Steven's concerned face. "Can we afford to think otherwise? If you really want to help, then you should meet Jake at the mall as we planned." 

Steve did as MacLeod requested, and his departure left Deb with the sensation that a turning point had been reached; the chain of events had begun and whatever the outcome, there was no going back. 

Dawson watched television as Deb and Duncan changed for the Mardi Gras celebration, his thumb depressing the channel button on the remote control with measured beats. The weather reports were calling for worsening conditions, with perhaps a foot of new snow expected by morning and high winds and occasional white outs. 

"What the hell's an 'exposed flesh warning'?" Joe asked when he heard someone emerge from the bedroom behind him. 

He laughed as the television reporter answered the question as if she had heard him, "In these conditions, exposed flesh freezes quickly. Be certain to take proper precautions when going out and about today." 

"Well, if this storm's good for anything, at least it'll keep the number of people at the mall down. Fewer innocent bystanders," Joe commented. 

Deb snorted, knit her eyebrows for a moment, and shook her head at Joe. "Where do you think you are, Joe? If the citizens of Edmonton stayed home every time we saw a flake of snow, we'd spend half our lives indoors! You can trust me that the mall will be plenty full tonight." 

The click of a door closing called Joe's attention toward Duncan, who emerged from the guest bedroom costumed, as Deb was, for Mardi Gras. They were both outfitted as musketeers in clothing as accurate as Deb's friends in the Live Role-Playing Society could manage. MacLeod had insisted that the slits at the center back, inner arm, and under arm seams be lengthened for better freedom of movement, over Deb's protests that the costumes were, after all, borrowed. Joe looked them over from head to toe. Except for the anachronisms of wristwatches and MacLeod's katana, they looked as if they had stepped from a history book or museum exhibit. 

"Are you two ready?" Dawson asked. 

Deb took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She was surprised to find that she was calmer than she had expected to be. 

MacLeod answered with a question. "Was that Steve on the phone?" 

Joe nodded affirmatively and answered, "He's at the mall and touched base with Jake. Everything's in place on their end." 

MacLeod replied, "Then we're ready. Let's go." 

\--Wain 

* * *

**Round 26**

"Amanda, listen to me: You will keep your hands to yourself tonight, or I will personally turn you over to Jake Chisholm, myself. We clear on that?" Duncan was arranging a fold of Amanda's costume, making a more artistic drape. 

"Oh, now you're buddies with him! He does terrible things to me, and you just go butter him up." 

"Let me make sure I understand this. He caught you dead to rights with somebody else's wallet?" 

"Well, yes, but. . ." 

"Just stop right there. You knew that there was Mall security, and you knew that we had this little problem which was going to need all our attention, and you went on a little rustling spree anyhow?" 

"There are so many people there, they don't _need_ all that money!" 

MacLeod said nothing, merely looked at her. 

"Well, they don't!" Amanda was sounding a little shrill, even to her own ears. 

"Amanda, we've been over this so many times. I'm not getting into this, again. I'm just saying that I got that thing off your wrist once, so you could get back in here, but if you are caught again, you're on your own. I would be willing to bet that it won't pass the metal detectors at the airports, either, so think about that. You'll be stuck with it until you come up for trial. 

"I'm standing here without my sword, because it was collected at the entrance when it tripped the metal detectors. We're all practically naked, all right? We have to pay attention to business: no distractions." 

It was the sulky nod of a child coerced against her will, but it was agreement, of a sort. Dama Fortuna stood in front of the musketeers and the civilian Dawson, and they oriented themselves to escort Deb to the Santa Maria. 

They weren't the only Immortals there tonight, though, and Deb picked up several others, even before the tang of Jeanne alerted her as she approached the ship. 

The plastic syringe of veterinary sedative had tripped no alarms, and she'd gotten the needle past in a belt buckle. The muskets were leaned on the wall of the coatcheck room, back at the entrance, carefully tagged for their owners. 

Now, all she had to do was get into arm's-length of a girl who would have no hesitation about killing her, and who doubtless had long since arranged her own weapons, a girl who Deb was growing surer was hidden deep in the lower decks of the old Spanish vessel. I'm going to be crawling around the cable tier, Deb thought, and hating every second of it. I'll be squeezing through places where Duncan couldn't even fit, where there's no help to be had. 

The smile she flashed her friends wasn't quite straight, but she pulled on her gauntlets and headed up to the deck, her eyes half-closed, feeling the presence of the girl she hunted. 

\--Palladia 

* * *

**Round 27**

For the first time, Deb was glad for the diminutive stature she'd inherited from her mother. At barely 5'3", her body was bent almost in half; anyone else would be crawling, and she'd barely begun. She was used to being able not only to Feel an Immortal, but pinpoint them exactly. Here in these cramped, dimly lit spaces, her "radar" was almost useless. The sense of her quarry was everywhere--above, below, in front and behind; it was only by strictest concentration that she had a mental trail to follow. 

As always, her anxiety was focused mostly in her hands; any more fussing with the small hypo and she'd be likely to stab herself! That was the one thing that made her nervous about this plan, she'd had Rehab training but she'd never handled a needle before. The drug was intramuscular, just stab anywhere and push they'd assured her, but she still didn't like it. Her right hand clutched a much more reassuring weight, something even Duncan didn't know about. It had taken a lot of effort to persuade Dave to part with his collector's item-a lead crystal dagger, silent to the metal detectors, but (like all Dave's blades) fully functional and razor sharp. If she couldn't use one on this little brat, she wouldn't hesitate to use the other. 

Deb continued to half walk, half crawl through smaller and smaller passages; a sudden dimming of the light announced that she had just crossed the water line. A life-sized Spanish Galleon. Jeanne could be anywhere, yet instinct continued to whisper "down" in her mind. The sound of her own breathing obscured everything else, and she prayed that her movements were quiet. Suddenly her Buzz sense flared like a beacon, and at the same moment she saw a small shape outlined in the light of a porthole. 

She jabbed the needle quickly, before the child could react; a tiny whimper announced success. The powerful muscle-relaxant would have dropped a small horse, but with Immortal metabolism you could never be sure. Watching the reaction spread through the small body was like seeing the collapse of a rag-doll. A small object fell from suddenly limp fingers; Jeanne twisted around even as she fell, and Deb could see the cold look in those child-eyes as she spoke a single word: "Fool!" 

The words Dead Man's Switch flashed through Deb's mind and a stab of terror pierced her soul. In the distance she heard a faint WHUMP, muffled by wood and water. "Oh Gods, no!" 

_Let the battle begin._

\--The Ghost Cat 

* * *

Death By Chocolate Page 2   
Round Robin Home 

© 2001 Ghost Cat, Palladia, & Wain   
Please send comments to the authors! 

General Disclaimer: the concept of Immortality and any characters from the _Highlander_ universe belong to Davis/Panzer Productions, et al. No copyright infringement intended, there is no monetary gain, yadda yadda yadda. 

* * *  
  
---  
  
  


  



	2. Death By Chocolate: Part 2

Death By Chocolate pg 2/2

  


  


  


_Death By Chocolate_

By Ghost Cat, Palladia, and Wain 

* * *

**Round 28**

The sound would have been inoffensive enough in another situation, a deep, resounding thump that closely resembled distant thunder or a huge wooden church door slamming closed. MacLeod looked at the costumed revelers dancing on the makeshift disco floor near the Santa Maria squeal with glee when a large jack-in-the-box popped open and belched forth a cloud of smoke. The party-goers danced on with no apparent effect, and Duncan wondered if the explosion had been an effect provided by the Mardi Gras organizing committee when the smoke drifted lazily to the ceiling and the fire alarms began a piercing whine. 

In a heartbeat, the sprinklers over the dance floor began to shower the guests, who began to wipe their hands and bodies disgustedly and repeatedly. MacLeod moved away from the Santa Maria and trotted to the dance floor, appraising the situation as he went. He knelt to touch some of the liquid that rained from the sprinkler system, rubbed it lightly between his fingers, an inhaled. He nodded sad recognition of an old enemy. 

Mustard gas made its debut at the Battle of Ypres in World War I. In military documents, it was officially designated as a vesicant, a skin irritant. Technically a slowly vaporizing, oily liquid and toxic in either its gaseous or liquid state at levels below which a man is capable of detecting it by smell, mustard gas was favored on and off the battlefield because of the length of time it was effective--days on foliage or in clothing. MacLeod's experience transporting the wounded from those bloody trenches and battlefields told him that Jeanne's victims had time on their side. If he could only round up the security forces and paramedic teams and persuade them to neutralize the poison with chlorine, the dozens of people who had been drenched would be spared the slow agony that mustard gas caused as it leached into the tissue, hydrolizing and transforming into hydrochloric acid. 

He gritted his teeth. Time and MacLeod's experience was on their side. But now Debra was truly alone; it would be minutes or perhaps longer until he could return to the Santa Maria. 

\--Wain 

* * *

**Round 29**

Someone else was going to have to handle whatever had happened out in the Mall. The crumpled form in front of her was her problem; right now, the Mall was someone else's baby. 

Deb supposed it made sense, of a sort, for an alchemist to be an electrician in real life, and certainly the tie-wraps had been easier to smuggle into the Mall than a set of cuffs would have been. She threaded the end of the plastic strap through its catch, and pulled it tight on the child's wrists. She followed suit with the ankles, then looped the kid's arms around her neck so she could crawl through the passageways with the child on her back. Finally, she hauled herself and her limp burden up the last companionway to the main deck and lay there, panting, the warm length of the little girl still plastered up against her back. 

There was no one in sight. Whatever the "whump" had been, this part of the mall must have been evacuated. For the first time since she'd plunged the syringe into Jeanne, Deb grinned. The empty part of the Mall included a door, she thought gratefully, unmanned, and best of all, on the same side of the Mall as her car. Getting the child out wasn't going to be as bad as she'd expected. 

The kid actually did me a favour, Deb thought. By accident, sure, but a favour. I'll make it a point to thank her. Now, how can I let everyone who needs to know that I left voluntarily? 

Finger by finger, she loosened the gauntlets, folded all the fingers under except the index, and left one pointing down the gangplank, and the other pointing toward the door. That ought to do it - practically as explicit as a note. Jeanne's breathing was deep and regular, her pulse slow but steady. 

Carrying the child, Deb waded through the deepening snow toward her car to drive home, leaving behind the Mall and every single person in Edmonton who actually knew what she was doing. 

\--Palladia 

* * *

**Round 30**

MacLeod's thoughts ran through infinite variations of the theme "where's a cop when you need one?" as his feet pounded down the mall. Weaving through the crowds, he scanned left and right for the promised blue security phones. Suddenly, he was stopped dead in his tracks by the sight of a two-story glass wall, longer than a football field, leading to a completely different world. There, bigger than life, was the largest single source of chlorine in the Mega Mall: the World Water Park. Opening a glass door, he was attacked by a blast of hot, humid air; bracing that same door open, he climbed on top of a nearby stone bench. A voice that could carry across an open loch, which could cut through the noise of a battlefield, burst forth in a mock-drunken "HEY, EVERYBODY INTO THE POOL!" 

It was classic mob mentality in action: the people closest to him thought it was a grand idea, those further back were afraid to miss what the ones in front of them were doing, and the stranglers just wanted to gawk at the crowd. Within minutes half the population of the mall was pouring through that small door. And of course a crowd that size will immediately call into existence at least one security guard. 

In the distance, MacLeod could see a familiar man-mountain, head and shoulders above the crowd. A voice to rival his own carried across the distance; "Hurry up Falcon, my grandmother could run faster than you!" Jake seemed to be able to part the crowds like wading through water, with Stephen huffing up behind. They spotted MacLeod in an instant, converging on him with worried frowns. Mac quickly filled them in on the situation; two sets of ex-military eyes widened with shock. 

Jake took over the situation like a born leader; Duncan could almost see the spirit of Laird Chisholm shining in his eyes. Security co-ordinated with the Life Guards and within moments an underwater orgy was transformed into an orderly evacuation. MacLeod grabbed a startled Savage by the shoulder and they both rushed back to the Santa Maria, praying that they weren't flying from one crisis to another. 

\--The Ghost Cat 

* * *

**Round 31**

"If anything goes wrong, fallback is the Santa Maria." Duncan had looked at Steve and gotten a nod of agreement. Amanda had agreed, had understood, but after the explosion, the kicked-over-anthill knot of humanity had pulled her as a bakery draws children. All those people whose attention was elsewhere, who could never hope to identify her uncostumed, and who had come prepared to spend money, drove thoughts of Deb out of her mind. When she hit the pool, laughing, and emerged soaked, her veils and robe clung to her. 

The voice behind her was amused, asking, "How did you get rid of it?" and the bulk of a very large man herded her over to the glass wall. 

"Uh, what?" Amanda stammered. 

"The exclusion bracelet. That was our gift to you for the duration, you know, and it's not supposed to come off." 

He didn't look angry, Amanda thought, her mind racing, trying a way to handle this problem. She knew she couldn't escape him. She also knew how to handle angry men, even Duncan, who had always been at least fond of her, even at his most exasperated. Anger was a handle, as fondness was, but this smiling ease was nothing she could use. 

"Fortunately," Jake continued, "I have another one." He snapped it onto her wrist. "Now, I'm going to explain something to you. I can put you in the detention center, and you'll be safe and warm. Or, I can put you out one of the doors. It's very cold out there, and you're very wet. You won't be coming back in." 

He doesn't know what I am, Amanda thought. He thinks that would kill me. "You can't do that to me! I'd die!" She feigned semi-hysteria. 

Amanda looked into the calm blue eyes. Something was wrong. He ought to back off, here. She knew her beauty could make men's breath catch, and that compared to him, her size was childlike. He ought to be feeling pity for her, an urge to protect her, to set things right, and all she saw in his eyes was an indifferent patience. 

"I don't have time to fool with you right now. What's it going to be?" 

Amanda's mind was racing. Outside, she'd be very uncomfortable, and probably freeze to death. Not permanent death, but he didn't know that. The possibility didn't seem to bother him. Jail? She hated confinement. 

"If you put me outside, and I died, my relatives would sue the mall for your negligence. And it would be at least manslaughter. It would cost a lot of money. You'd go to prison." 

"No, miss. You don't have any relatives. As for what I do in an emergency like this, I don't think it will come to official attention." 

"MacLeod would. . ." 

"You know MacLeod? No matter. By the time this is all over, he's going to owe me a large favour. He and Steve think their little friend is going to take care of Jeanne Bac Tho, but they're going to need me. They don't know what she is, but I do." 

What she is, Amanda thought frantically. What does he mean? Jeanne, as an individual, or all of us? Jeanne, as an Immortal, or as something else? Amanda usually saved her considerable intelligence for a rainy day, but now, under Jake's cold eyes, she straightened her dripping clothes, and meeting his eyes directly, said, "We're all like the blind men with the elephant, here. You know something, we know something, and Deb knows something, but none of us has the whole picture. We need to talk." 

"Yes, Miss, we do. But I'm very busy right now. You're going to detention, and when I'm free, we'll talk. You know the way." 

Something must have changed behind her eyes, because Jake laid a staying hand on her arm, and said, "I've activated the chip in that monitor. We can track you anywhere in the mall. Go directly to jail. Do not pass 'GO'. . ." 

Who would ever think someone like that could read me, Amanda grumbled to herself. I'm going to have to work on my 'tells.' 

\--Palladia 

* * *

**Round 32**

Stephen kept the feeling of panic on a tight rein as he and MacLeod raced to the rendezvous point. They rounded the last corner and careened around the miniature golf course, the look of concern on Duncan's face darkening to a cold certainty. 

"Where's Debra?" he asked of no one in particular, easing to a stop and breathing hard. He narrowed his eyes and stilled his thoughts; he felt no one. 

"She has to be here," Steve protested. 

Duncan and Stephen ducked under the bright yellow tape that cordoned off the area of the mall that had been contaminated. 

"There's no one here at all," Duncan replied. He stood in place and turned around, searching the vast space; he turned a critical eye on the wreck of the dance floor and scanned the miniature golf course. Returning his gaze to the Santa Maria, he nodded as if coming to a decision. He walked methodically on board the ship. 

"What are we looking for?" Stephen asked. "We shouldn't just stand here! We need to go and find her." 

"Go where? In which direction?" Duncan asked in a reasonable voice. Lost for an answer, Steve began to pace. Duncan followed him with his eyes, and in the moment before the Watcher was about to kick a discarded gauntlet across the deck in frustration, he shouted a warning. 

"That," he indicated the glove, all fingers but one carefully folded, "is what we're looking for. I saw the other one below on the floor, but I didn't understand the message until I saw this one." MacLeod led Steve off the ship and turned in the direction the second gauntlet pointed--to the outside exit. 

Steve's eyes widened in concern. "But is the message from Deb or is it from Jeanne Bac Tho?" 

"Get your car," the dark Immortal barked. 

Steve spluttered, "it doesn't make sense. Why would Deb leave the mall?" 

"Get your car," MacLeod repeated. 

"What about Amanda?" Steve asked. 

"Get your car." 

\--Wain 

* * *

**Round 33**

Duncan had scowled when she bought a Toyota Highlander, but it was probably the sheer size of the Sport Utility that saved Deb's life. Her concentration was focused on the icy lot and blowing snow when Jeanne's eyes snapped open. With an animal snarl, the child leapt forward but, bound as she was, even her small body couldn't cross the length of the vehicle in one pounce. Landing in a tangled heap in the middle row of seats, she couldn't reach the driver--but she could reach the stick-shift. The vehicle gave a sickening lurch as the engine abruptly dropped into a random gear. 

The steering wheel came to malevolent life in Deb's hands and it was only the stubborn thought that she was not going to be killed by a rogue SUV for a second time that kept her even vaguely under control. As her right hand moved down to shift back into Drive, the wheel spun wildly -- _I'm Canadian,_ she thought, _why the hell didn't I buy 4WD?_

Trying desperately to brake, she threw up her hands against anticipated flying glass. The vehicle had a Zen epiphany as it suddenly became one with a concrete pillar. Stunned for a moment, blinded by the deployed airbag (at least the damn things work), Deb momentarily lost track of the child. When she recovered, she saw Jeanne out in the snow, gnawing at her bonds like a wolf. 

In her rush to escape, she hadn't retrieved her coat--neither one of them was dressed for the storm. Unlike the others, Deb hadn't even tried to take her blade inside, but could she get to the cargo compartment before Jeanne escaped--or attacked? 

Throwing open the hatchback, Deb left skin on the frozen door latch. Reaching inside, her fingers wrapped themselves around a familiar hilt. Her triumphant grin turned into a gasp of pain as a bitter wind blasted the steel; freezing it instantly, gluing the hilt to her flesh. _Northlander or not,_ she thought to herself, _I can't fight long in this!_

\--The Ghost Cat 

* * *

**Round 34**

" _Jeanne, Jeannette, Jeannot, ma ch're, ma petite,_ wake up," Amie had chanted, sing-song, over and over again in the back of the Highlander. Unable to shake the Immortal child with her ghostly hands, she had resorted to calling to her from the reaches of fog-laden, drug-induced stupor. _"Jeannette, Jeannot, Jeanne, reveille-toi,"_ she sang again, her voice ascending the scale in what the uninitiated would call an angelic voice. 

Jeanne felt her consciousness rise like a lazy bubble drifting up through the waters of a pool suddenly become turgid and impassable. She fought to reach Amie's voice. This couldn't be a nightmare; Amie always left her during the nightmares. She tried to tell Amie that she was coming, but her mouth refused to move. 

As the sedative finally wore away enough for Jeanne to hear Amie's voice, the Immortal catalogued her surroundings and tried to make plans for escape. Cold was the first thing she registered after Amie's voice; her surroundings resolved themselves into the interior of a large vehicle. Then the shrill winter wind became real, a sideways slither that told Jeanne that the car was fighting to maintain its course, and finally the hot, piercing bite of plastic against her wrists and ankles. Damn! Her sword was nowhere to be seen. She mentally loosed a string of curses that belied her soft and child-like appearance. The tiny Immortal began to chew at the plastic ties that bound her wrists; finding that futile, she hurled her body toward the driver's seat. Unable to reach the driver, she snaked her bound wrists forward and shoved the gear shift in a wild direction. 

"You're doing very well, Jeanne," Amie crooned. "Think of what we can do to her with a big piece of broken window glass after we crash." 

"This is safety glass, Amie," Jeanne spat at her in her mind, unwilling to allow her voice to betray her to Debra. "It breaks in useless little pieces, not in shards." 

Jeanne thought that crash might kill her. Her delicate body slammed against the front passenger seat with a violence that shocked her. The force of the crash ejected her through the side window, breaking the safety glass with her tiny frame, hurtling her in the white snow that was soon stained with the blood from a dozen cuts. She writhed in the snow fighting to regain her balance, gnashed her teeth, and began once again to tear at her plastic handcuffs with her incisors. She would be damned if she let Debra take her and drink down her essence. 

"Use what we have," Amie whispered to her. Jeanne thought of her best weapon and immediately stopped growling and chewing at the plastic restraints. She gave a studied look of helplessness at Debra, who was brandishing her weapon, and fell into the snow weeping like an abandoned baby. 

\--Wain 

* * *

**Round 35**

For the first time, Deb saw something akin to fear in the child-Immortal's eyes. Jeanne lay in blood-spattered snow, shivering uncontrollably, lips already starting to turn blue. Tears froze on her cheeks, competing with the snowflakes that settled there. It could have been real, or it could be just more manipulation, another game. Deb didn't know for sure, but then again, she didn't care. The air was bitter cold, deadly cold; every breath was like inhaling a thousand needles. But this was nothing compared to the icy grip that wrapped itself around Debra's heart, creeping into her soul. Deb didn't see a vulnerable, injured pseudo-child; she saw every bully she'd ever encountered. She didn't hear the tiny whimpering noises; she heard every voice that had ever been raised against her in anger. 

"Hold still you little Beast!" Steel as cold and sharp as a winter wind cut loose the bonds at wrists and ankles. New blood flowed, but Deb didn't even twitch at the sight. "Get up! You're not hurt; or you won't be for long." 

Jeanne didn't move, looking up with dark puppy-dog eyes. "You can't hurt me; I'm just a little kid!" 

"You may be little, but you haven't been a kid in a long time. That's if you ever were." The point of the rapier didn't waiver; not attacking or defending, just pointing down at her. 

The child's voice grew more desperate; "I have no weapon!" 

Not taking her eyes off the traitorous waif, she reached into the mangled vehicle, throwing down something halfway between a shortsword and a machete. "I found it; I brought it. The rest of your toys, you'll have to do without. You wanted me, you've got me. No toys, no tricks, no games; just you and me." 

_Things are getting nasty._

\--The Ghost Cat 

* * *

**Round 36**

Slacks, fisherman's sweater, boots, a down jacket, and it all fit. With real gratitude, Amanda had stripped off the Fortuna outfit in which she'd shivered for two hours, and pulled on the clothes Jake had brought. 

"Steve left me a message that they're all headed back to your friend's. You know how to get there?" 

Amanda sat looking at him, wondering just how badly she wanted to get into a car alone with this man. 

"I'm off-duty. The only problem you have with me is that you went grazing in my fields. Outside this mall, we have no quarrel." Jake, seeming to follow her thinking with that eerie skill, waited for her to make up her mind. 

She thought about this, considered her need to get back to Deb's, the weather, and the length of time she'd have to sit there if she didn't go. Then Amanda, herself none too shabby at reading 'tells,' rose, and produced her most beguiling smile. "Let's go." 

At one of the exits, he hit a button on a remote key, and handed it to her. Before she could ask what it was for, he scooped her up, and headed off into the frigid night. "Peon parking is 'way in the back of the lot," he explained. "No shuttles now." It was a long enough walk that the engine was making some heat when they got to the Blazer. He wasn't even breathing hard, Amanda noted. Snow cascaded off the door when it was opened, and he put her in, reached into the back for the scraper. 

The car purred quietly out to the main road, and Amanda began to explain how to get to Deb's. Then she asked, "What is it that you know about Jeanne that we don't?" 

"Wait 'til we get there. There's no sense telling the story twice, and I need to drive. It's nasty out there. Steve ought to be all right. What kind of driver is your friend?" 

"Deb's a good driver," Amanda said, indignantly. 

"Relax. I'm just asking. It'd be easy to get into trouble tonight, and hard to get out of it. See what I mean?" 

Up ahead, a set of hazard lights flashed, and off by a pylon, headlights shone in odd directions. 

\--Palladia 

* * *

**Round 37**

"Stop!" Amanda pleaded, pointing to the car parked at a crazy angle by the pylon. "It's MacLeod and Stephen." Both men piled gratefully into Jake's car. 

"Where do we go now?" Amanda asked. "We can't find Debra and Jeanne in this storm." 

"We've got to try." For the first time, Duncan saw something akin to fear in the large man's eyes. 

"I think it's time we talked about that elephant," Amanda told him. "What to you know about Jeanne that we don't?" 

"Not Jeanne so much," Jake grated. "It's about Amie." He depressed the car's accelerator pedal as much as he dared. 

Duncan had drilled into Debra time and time again that anger doesn't give you an edge in a fight. Standing calf-deep in the snow, the wind stinging her with a thousand icy needles, she could nearly hear his voice telling her that she must defeat her own anger before she was ready for battle. 

Debra shoved her anger to one side and found in its place a curiously detached state of mind. This was different from training sessions; her senses heightened, she felt every tiny shift of balance as the wind buffeted her, saw Jeanne's muscles twitch before she hefted her blade, and nearly smelled the hatred blazing from the tiny Immortal's eyes. 

Jeanne's best weapons were her agility and her taunting voice. She used them to her best advantage now, diving past Debra into the snow, rolling to her feet, forcing the Northlander to face the blinding wind. She swung in a deadly arc toward Debra's shins. For someone who usually fought by stealth, Jeanne was surprisingly dangerous with her blade. Deb staggered away from the slice toward her shinbones and caught her breath, inhaling wind-driven snow. She tried to unweight the blade in her hand but found that it was still frozen against her palm. When she parried Jeanne's next blow, the shock tore her flesh away from the hilt. Jeanne let loose a derisive sound as she saw the look of pain on Debra's face. A backward step against something slippery sent her onto the snow-covered ground. Victory shone in Jeanne's eyes. 

Throughout the fight, through cut and parry, advance and retreat, Deb's angry voice begged to be allowed to speak. _See that look on her face?_ her angry voice asked. _Don't you remember it? From school?_ Remember it she did--the derision, the taunting. She had never quite understood the pack mentality that drove the bullies to pick on a quiet girl who really would have been happier left alone with her nose in an book; only as an adult had she understood that the remaining children went along with the bullies to avoid becoming victims themselves. The worst was the slam book, that book where the other girls wrote down exactly what they thought of everyone in the class and then passed it around for all to read. It was the height of unfairness, Debra had thought as a child, that first they ostracize me, then they write that I'm stuck up. _Please let me out,_ her angry voice demanded, and all of the anger and pain fused with all of her training and pulled her forward into a low half lunge, into a _passato sotto_ , her every thought flowing through her rapier point and into Jeanne's abdomen. 

Debra withdrew her blade; immediately, blood froze on the steel. She lifted her weapon over her head, raised slightly on the balls of her feet, and stopped as headlights blinded her. 

\--Wain 

* * *

**Round 38**

When he flagged down Jake and Amanda, MacLeod was sure that their missing friend hadn't left the lot. He couldn't explain how he knew, nothing he could put his finger on, not even something as vague as a Buzz; it was instinct. And a man doesn't survive more than 400 years without trusting his instincts. While the others scanned row by row for the dark green bulk of the SUV, Duncan closed his eyes and tried to slip into a meditation. Before he met Deb he never would have even considered searching for the feel of another Immortal, but desperate times call for desperate measures. 

He let part of himself break off and start to drift, like seeking like. The part that was still aware of the world was listening, straining past the howl of the wind to hear for the ringing tones of steel on steel. He couldn't make himself admit that he was listening for another sound, the deep rumble of almost-thunder that was the last warning before an unstoppable release of power. But by then, either way, it would already be too late. 

Expanded awareness brushed up against something familiar, his eyes snapped open and he pointed. Jake didn't argue; soldiers believe in instinct too. Headlights cut through the blowing snow, illuminating a tableau of life and death. "Let me out," shouted Duncan, "now! Everyone else, stay in the truck." 

"Back off, MacLeod. She's mine!" There was such a depth of hatred in those words that for a moment he wasn't sure which one had spoken. Then the snow cleared for a moment, and he could see who was near death. And who was ready to kill. There wasn't much left of the old Debra in what turned to confront MacLeod; "You can't interfere and, because of who you are, you won't interfere." 

Unarmed as he was, MacLeod dared to step forward; enough to see her clearly, but also within sword reach. He had seen that look in a woman's eyes before ("I want him to live!") and it suddenly occurred to him that this was Cassandra's student. 

Duncan kept his voice calm but firm, "You're right, I can't stop this; but you can. Look at yourself, look at what you are becoming." 

A tinge of desperation crept into her tone, "I have to do this. She's everything that's ever tried to hurt me; everything I wanted to fight back against but couldn't, until now." 

"No she isn't. Jeanne Bac Tho is one person: a dangerous person, and an enemy, but still only one person. If you think of her as anything more than that, then you're fighting for all the wrong reasons!" Confusion warred with hate in her eyes, and hate was still winning. He was losing her and he knew it; there had to be some way to get through to her, something personal- 

(Don't drop this one)   
\--The Ghost Cat 

* * *

**Round 39**

The frigid winds tore across the vast empty space of the mall's parking lot and the road that encircled it, robbing Duncan of breath. Tears streamed from his eyes and immediately froze against his face. He blinked hard to focus; in that disoriented moment he heard Jeanne move. Debra heard her, too, and her muscles twitched the bloodied rapier back into position for the killing stroke. 

Jeanne's attempt to regain control of the battle was over even in the millisecond that the Northlander's hands twitched on her hilt. Sprawled in the snow, her lips and arms blue and her hair dusted white from the snow, Jeanne's desperate, outstretched hand fell several inches short of her sword. A faint crabbing gesture of her fingers marked the end of her life. 

Duncan approached Debra slowly. With gentle but sure motions, he reached for the arm nearest him and slid his hand to her wrist to stay the _coup de grace._ He drew close to her. When he spoke, the warmth of his breath against her ear made Debra wonder how long it had been that she had lost sensation in her skin. She began to shudder violently and mumbled something Duncan couldn't understand. 

"Jeanne can't hurt you. You have some time now to think about this," he coaxed her. 

Debra looked at the still, small form on the snow. She was tiny; she looked like an angel or a sleeping child, so different from the taunting, threatening monster of only a few minutes earlier. Debra's sword arm dropped to her side; she allowed Duncan to peel her fingers away from the grip. Duncan noticed in alarm that her hands were blue. 

"She doesn't fight fair!" Deb moaned piteously, her speech slurring. "How am I supposed to fight fair with someone who won't challenge me to a fair fight?" 

"Are you fighting Jeanne or someone else?" Duncan asked pointedly. 

Deb found it harder and harder to concentrate. She was so cold now. If only she could be done with this and go to sleep in the snow like Jeanne. 

"They're supposed to fight fair!" Deb repeated, "You said that it was always supposed to be fair! You told me there could be only one, didn't you? But how can I kill her when she doesn't fight right?" Her speech was becoming more and more incoherent. She allowed Duncan to pick her up and carry her toward Jake's vehicle. By the time Stephen opened the door, Debra was near death from hypothermia. Stephen gently tucked her head against his shoulder and wrapped his arms around her. 

"What about Jeanne?" Jake yelled over the howling winds. An urgency in his voice and face made the Highlander reconsider. He went back for Jeanne and carried her out of the weather. 

Placing the dead Immortal child as far away from Debra as the confines of the car would allow, MacLeod instructed Amanda, "If she has the sense to keep her mouth shut when she comes to, fine. Otherwise, keep her quiet any way you can." 

Jake turned his car back toward the mall; MacLeod made a negative gesture. 

"The walls have ears, and you have a long story to tell us," Duncan said. "We need to go somewhere more private. I'll show you the way." 

\--Wain 

* * *

**Round 40**

Warm, it was blessedly warm in Deb's apartment, and the hot cocoa Steve made had spread its own warmth and sugar to still the shivering. Jake had carried Jeanne, very cold but not yet stiff, through the door, had laid her gently on a bed. 

Debra sat, staring, indifferent. She had walked in under her own power, but like a robot, steered and settled into her chair by MacLeod, who then went to talk to Jake, sitting by the child, absently stroking her hair. Jeanne had come to in the heat of the car, fought briefly, and subsided. 

"Stay with her." Jake instructed MacLeod. "I have to go down to the car." He returned with what looked like a shaving kit. 

"Other guys sent back their M-16s, or StarScopes. Me, I sent back my Questioning Kit." With practiced ease, Jake filled a syringe, slid the needle into the vein at Jeanne's elbow, and stroked her hair as she snarled at him, helplessly. "That's good for about eight hours, solid sleep. It's real sleep, too, not just unconsciousness. She'll feel better when she wakes up." 

"Yes, but will we?" Deb was exhausted, physically and emotionally. Her car was a wreck, her life was a wreck, and her body hurt all over. 

"What, exactly, is it that you have to tell us about this 'Amie?' " Amanda asked him. 

Jake glanced at a clock, blinking at 1:45 AM. "This is a good time to tell this particular story. It's a dark-hours kind of tale." He took a deep breath, shifted himself in the chair and began, "Marie-Claire d'Estaing wasn't a particularly powerful witch, but what she lacked in skill, she more than made up for with persistence. In early 1940, when the Germans were ready to take Paris, she had been sent to Vietnam as a young girl, to be married to a French tea planter she'd never met. Her mother arranged the liaison, and after the wedding, Marie-Claire, a Parisienne, was taken to her husband's home in the boonies. After that, Hanoi was the only city she ever saw, and that, not very often." 

"How do you know all this?" Duncan asked. 

"You're not going to complain that there's no such thing as witches?" Jake grinned at him. 

"No," MacLeod said shortly, and made no further comment. 

"Well, that will save some time. As to how I know all this, I've talked with a lot of people under conditions that urge 'full disclosure.'" 

Duncan snorted. "Whatever they think you want to hear." 

"At first," Jake admitted easily. "But eventually, the wisdom of honesty becomes clear." Jake's blue eyes were calm and direct, and the term "sang-froid" occurred to MacLeod. 

"Madam d'Estaing loathed rural life. She also despised the Vietnamese, who called her ' _La Haine,_ ' and much worst things in Vietnamese. She came to symbolize all that was wrong with colonization, and they made her a bogeyman to the children. She more than earned the title, in ways that were often very unpleasant." 

Dawson had listened to all this in silence, and asked, "You were questioning these people in the late Sixties, early Seventies, right? What's all this got to do with Jeanne?" 

"Once you get someone talking freely, the last thing you want to do is shut him up. Usually, the best information comes from something he doesn't even know interests you. In the early stages of interrogation, people say anything just to be talking, without discussing the subjects at hand. That's okay. We'll get there. I've had subjects recite family histories, fairy tales, children's rhymes, all sorts of things, as we progress." 

"How do you know this business about a witch isn't a fairy tale?" Steve had known Jake for a long time, but had never heard this story. 

"Because of Jeanne. I started to work at the Mall in '88, after I'd pulled my twenty-year hitch, and after a while, I saw this little girl hanging around. Jeanne talks in her sleep, she has nightmares. She called for Marie-Claire, her 'amie.' Her friend. The Vietnamese had this superstition about people who lived forever, never aging. Marie-Claire must have figured she was wasting her life on this tea plantation out in the boondocks, she could see herself getting older, year by year. Somewhere, she found Jeanne, and somehow she moved in on her. The Cong said she disappeared around the time of Dien Bien Phu, 1954. She'd have been somewhere around 30. 

"When Jeanne doesn't know I'm watching, she's a lot more sophisticated than a ten-year-old Vietnamese kid from the war. I thought it was all legend, but I've watched that kid for damn near twelve years, and she's still ten years old. 

Jake sat back in the deep chair, and looked at his audience. "You have any problem with the idea that this kid doesn't age?" He looked at his listeners, one by one, searching for incredulity. 

Finally, Dawson broke the silence. "Not as much as you'd think." 

\--Palladia 

* * *

**Round 41**

Immortal combat is like a drug; the deeper you go, the harder it is to get out again. Heightened by the duel, Jeanne's Buzz still screamed inside her skull and all the Northlander wanted to do was get rid of it. While her brain was still half-starved by hypothermia, her mind had found a desperate solution. She couldn't trust herself not to turn violent, so she simply shut down. Her body went into a kind of automatic pilot; while in her mind she fought another battle entirely. 

As the others told stories about witches and superstitions, Deb found herself back in the Library; this time, she wasn't alone. Her violent impulses took the form of a white tigress, the symbol of strength and power that she admired so much. And, in this little pocket of unreality, Debra didn't find it unusual at all to be arguing with a Big Cat. 

"Why did you let him stop you?" growled the ghost cat. "You had just discovered your true strength; you were about to achieve your first victory, against all those who attack the weak!" 

Deb shook her head slowly, her mind clearer now than it had been in the storm. "You don't defeat the Bullies by attacking the weak yourself! Duncan said that I was becoming-" 

Her thoughts were interrupted by an angry snap of jaws that could easily take a head in one bite. "And you're just going to continue to listen to everything Duncan says?" the beast purred. "He thinks you're weak too, you know. Why else has he stayed so close to you for so long? He wants to fight your battles for you; he doesn't think you could survive on your own. You, who learned from Cassandra herself, with Talents that he will never have. You, who stood up to the spirit of Kalas, HIS worst enemy, and came out the victor!" 

The cat had made a big mistake reminding her of that; understanding lit Deb's green eyes. "I defeated Kalas by knowing when NOT to fight, by banishing the fear within that gave him power over me." 

A single pounce took Debra to the floor, hot breath on her throat. "MacLeod doesn't WANT you to be strong." 

Though dagger teeth shone mere inches from her neck, Deb remained perfectly calm. Memories of Halloween had exorcised her fear, and without it the downward spiral of Fear-Anger-Hate couldn't take hold of her. "That kind of strength I don't need." She got her legs up to her chest and, with a perfectly balanced thrust, flipped the Cat across the room. "Violence does not cure violence; hatred doesn't make the fear go away. Kalas wasn't real, and neither are you!" With a crisp decisiveness born of new self-confidence, she turned her back on the Cat. She didn't have to look to know that it was gone; the hard shell around her heart cracked and she felt warmth and light flow back into her soul. 

Deb turned around, surprised to see Fitzcairn leaning casually against one of the bookshelves, a roguish smile curling his lips. She snorted; "Some help you were." There was a depth of pride in his voice as he replied, "You didn't need my help, Dear." 

\--The Ghost Cat 

* * *

**Round 42**

Drawings in charcoal, in pencil, in ink, slithered off the sloping draftsman's board, drifted up in the corners of the room like snow. Duncan slouched on the high stool, looking at them. Jeanne was there, sometimes curled up, sleeping. Jeanne wandering through the mall, laughing guilelessly. Jeanne, looking longingly at a woman's formal gown. 

There was unmistakably his own hand, scars and all, feeding a nibble of brownie to Amanda. The sure strokes had caught the child's greedy delight on her woman's face, the pleasure of indulgence. 

Deb was there, shadowed by Steve, and a crowd of strangers, all caught unawares, looking in windows, trying out games, salesclerks waiting on customers, chefs managing pots and skillets. All the varied life of the great mall was shown, all noted with an unflinching eye. 

The man who had done these was apparently indifferent to his surroundings; the bed on which he had laid Jeanne was unmade, and dishes needed doing. The windows were draped for someone who occasionally had to sleep during the days. 

Jake and Duncan had been driven over by Steve; three of them ought to be able to handle the child. It's very difficult, Jake had said, to control someone you don't want to hurt, but who has no reluctance about hurting you. Even if it's a small person, it gets tiring. We need to be able to spell each other for sleep, too, he had said. This might take days. 

On one wall, there was a katana. Duncan raised his eyebrows to Jake for permission, and gotten a shrug in return. He took it down, his hands knowing, pulled the sheath a little, looked at the quality of the steel. It was an old one, museum quality, and when everything was settled in, he asked, "This didn't come from the Ginza. Where did you get this?" 

"Services rendered. Some political splinter group in Italy kidnapped several kids from the Japanese embassy in Rome. The police thought they had one of the conspirators, but they weren't getting anywhere. There was a little behind-the-scenes, and I got shipped in from Fort Bragg. The kids were still all right when we found them, and the Ambassador gave me that. It just hangs on the wall." 

It had been awfully crowded, the three big men standing in Deb's bathroom, having the council of war about what to do with Jeanne. Deb wasn't going to be doing much for a while, they figured, and whatever they were going to do with the child wasn't going to happen at her place. Jake said he needed time with no interruptions, and privacy. 

"What, exactly, do you plan to do to her?" MacLeod's voice was low and dangerous. 

"What do you think I'm going to do? Cut her up into little pieces? It doesn't work that way. I'm just going to play with her mind. Find out what's going on. If I understand correctly what I've seen and heard tonight, your little friend Deb was going to cut Jeanne's head off out there in the Mall parking lot. And you were going to stand there and watch it. Are you really going to lecture me about what I plan to do?" 

He had taken over the seat at the drawing board, and his hands, seemingly of themselves, drew down another sheet of paper, began to sketch in the scene from the lot: the woman, rapier raised, standing over the cringing child, the swirling snow dragons caught in the lights from the cars. "Do we really want this?" Jake asked, as the scene took shape. 

"You speak any French?" Jake asked MacLeod. 

"Yes. I live in Paris, sometimes." 

"Good. You're going to be the good guy. You speak to her only in French. See if you can get Marie-Claire to answer. I'll speak to her only in Vietnamese, and Steve, only in English. Rumour had it that Marie-Claire never did learn any Vietnamese, and I'm going to try to use that as a lever to get Jeanne to begin to resist her. We're going to try to convince her that we care about her, but that Marie-Claire is only using her. 

"You ever work cattle?" Jake asked MacLeod. This non sequitur made Mac blink. 

"Here and there." 

"I was originally from Abilene. My grandfather always said that the way you do it is, you persuade them that where you want them to go is where they really want to go, themselves. Where there's food, and water, and safety, and where the riders stop chivvying them for wrong turns. It takes several days' driving to get them thinking this way, but eventually, they get pretty cooperative. They learn that at nightfall, they can graze and drink, and lie down." 

It was just beginning to be light outside. Jake dropped the heavy fabric over the windows, and said, "We have about three hours before she wakes up. Get some rest. It's going to be a long night." 

\--Palladia 

* * *

**Round 43**

Stephen had pulled the first round with Jeanne, and within a few minutes of entering the room where they had placed her, he soundly wished that he had not. He winced as he saw the girl on the bed, her right hand cuffed to the bedpost by necessity but much to the Watcher's discomfort and over his strenuous objections. The girl cowered and whimpered when he entered, then made a few helpless looks toward the bathroom door. Balancing a tray on his left hand, Steve cleared a place on an old, wooden dresser with his right elbow. 

"Oh, do you need to . . . ?" his voice trailed off in a question, and he indicated the bathroom door with a jerk of his head. At the wide-eyed, tentative nod from Jeanne, he deposited the breakfast tray on the dressed and went to the bed, pulling a tiny key from the pocket of his jeans. 

He sat on the bed and began to work the lock on the handcuffs. He smiled reassuringly at the child when they had been removed but was met not with relief and thanks but with the fury of a hellcat. Jeanne raked his eye and cheek with her fingernails, and she pushed her foot into his groin. Through the pain, Stephen grabbed at the child, turned her away from him, and held her tightly against him, both of them seated on the bed. Her arms and legs flailed at him, occasionally connecting with his forearm or shin in painful blows that would turn to bruises. She growled until her throat was raw; she perspired with effort. 

When the child was limp and barely able to move, Stephen risked allowing her a trip to the bathroom, his face burning with embarrassment at the necessity of leaving the door open. Back to the bed and once again secured to the bedpost, Jeanne looked at the Watcher with furious eyes. All of his efforts to cajole her into eating failed. He shook his head in wonder; it had been hours since she had eaten, and they had gone to the trouble of procuring what Jake said was her favourite breakfast-French toast sticks with imitation maple syrup and an orange soda from a fast food joint. 

Lunch was MacLeod's turn. Once again, the menu was dictated by Jake's observations of Jeanne's routines-a hotdog, French fries, and a milkshake dyed a suspiciously bright green in honour of Saint Patrick's Day. For his own lunch, the Immortal had no inclination to eat fast food; on his side of the tray were a salad and a small, crusty loaf of bread. 

_"Ça va?"_ he began in French as Jake had requested, _"Tu as faim?"_ he asked her if she was hungry and held out the tray with a smile. MacLeod understood suddenly something of Stephen's discomfort at seeing the girl secured to the bed. He hoped that the heavy curtains helped to soundproof their surroundings; he didn't even want to imagine what the authorities would think of three men who were holding a girl in captivity. 

He continued to speak to her in French, encouraging her to eat. "I heard that you love french fries. It'll do you good to have some." He held one of the fries out to her; she batted it away. He settled himself on the edge of the bed and began to eat his salad. He heard Jeanne's stomach rumble and noticed her eyeing his salad. One of his eyebrows lifted momentarily in a flash of insight, and he held his meal out to her. She ate voraciously. 

"It must be hard to always have to eat what a ten-year-old body craves," MacLeod noted. Jeanne peered at him, old eyes in a young face. _"Voyez-vous,"_ Duncan shifted from the informal to the formal form of address, "we know that you're there, Mme d'Estaing, and you're limited to working with such a small body. Why bother to waste energy trying to disguise what's already out in the open?" 

The other Immortal tore some of the bread from the loaf and nodded. "Fast food, candy, soft drinks. I thought I missed good food when I was on the plantation in Viet Nam; this is nearly unbearable." 

"It would have been easier for you to have been inside someone like me, but I imagine your choices were somewhat limited in rural Viet Nam during the war. I'll see to dinner for you if you like," Duncan offered casually. "To hell with Jeanne and her taste. What shall I bring you?" 

Duncan saw genuine longing in the eyes of the woman-child who sat across the bed from him. _"Pâté de fois gras,"_ she started hesitantly, then added in a stronger and surer voice, "a good goat cheese, some picholine olives. Some fruit, please. The child never eats any, if you can believe it. Can you manage a good Bordeaux? And caviar! We haven't had any since Xavier . . . " 

Here her face clouded and her voice trailed off. She squared her shoulders and looked accusingly at MacLeod. "I'll kill you when I get out of here, MacLeod," she stated with deadly calm. "It was easier to control Jeanne when he was alive." 

Duncan met her threat with a level stare and a resigned shrug. "You're a survivor, Mme d'Estaing, just as I am. You would have killed him, too." She considered for a moment and mirrored his shrug. 

An hour later, Marie-Claire d'Estaing and Duncan were on a first-name basis. Marie-Claire was smiling through Jeanne's face, lost in reminisces about Paris in the 1920s and 1930s. She almost seemed sad to see MacLeod leave but added at the last moment before he closed the door, "I'll kill you when this is over, Duncan." 

The other two men were waiting in the living room, Stephen pacing and Jake hunched over his drawing of the nightmare tableau of Debra and Jeanne in the parking lot. 

"Well, gentlemen," he announced. "This might be possible after all. Jeanne and Marie-Claire are not as tightly connected as we thought. We'll start with physical necessities; they don't like the same food or music. A few days' steady diet of Edith Piaf, _foie gras_ and caviar, and Jeanne should be ready for you, Jake." 

\--Wain 

* * *

**Round 44**

When Duncan offered Marie-Claire the marron glace, she was utterly still. She sat there in the child's body, staring at the candied chestnut, wondering where he'd gotten one, fresh, this time of year. She wasn't even aware of the fat tears rolling down Jeanne's cheeks, the look of utter desolation she wore. 

"The fall before I went to Indochina, we made these together - my mother and I. I was still a girl - I hadn't even put my hair up. It was a long process, it took days, and my mother told me that her mother had taught her to make them when she was my age. Someday, she said, I would teach my daughter. The next spring, when the chestnut trees were in blossom, she sent me away. Chestnut trees don't even grow in Viet Nam." 

She took a good five minutes eating it in tiny bites, to make it last as long as possible. When Duncan left the room, she was silent, and made no comment about killing him. 

Back in the living room, Duncan told Jake what he had done. It had taken three days from the time he'd called Methos to get the things there from Paris, but he had a supply on hand. 

"You have a real talent for this, MacLeod. You can almost hear her thinking, can't you? Is your heartbeat matched to hers, yet? Your rate of breathing? It's sort of a Stockholm syndrome in reverse, you fall in love with your prisoner, and finally, when you are very close, intimate, you get the information you want. Do you need a shower?" 

Duncan looked over his shoulder to see himself sketched on the drafting board, talking to Jeanne. It was animated conversation, like old friends, or, as he looked at it, stunned, he realized: lovers. He had touched the child only in the most minimal way, careful after Steve's experience with her. Unconsciously, he began to shake his head, to back off from the drawing. 

"Don't worry. You're not dealing with Jeanne. I am," Jake said, "And we're coming right along. The woman you're talking with is very adult. She's as starved for adult conversation as she was for adult food. She's becoming dependent on you, and that's the way of it. But remember, she has a long and ugly history behind her. Just because you're the voice of home, don't think she won't still hurt you, if she gets a chance." 

I've killed men, Duncan thought, and I've known a few women. But I've never set out to seduce a ghost, before. 

"Shower, yes. Good idea." He set the water as hot as he could stand it, leaned on his hands under the showerhead, head bowed, stood with it sluicing over his shoulders, running off his flanks to swirl away down the drain. After about ten minutes, he began to feel a little less fouled, a little less angry at what Jake had seen and understood. 

He shared his being with so many others: there had been so many Quickenings, over the years. Somehow, he had clung to himself, Duncan MacLeod of the clan MacLeod. My name is Legion, he thought, bitterly. 

\--Palladia 

* * *

**Round 45**

The next afternoon's tea had been prepared with a special care that was not lost on Marie-Claire. The old tray, the top of a folding television table, had been replaced with an ornate silver one. A matching silver teapot sat in the middle of it, surrounded by a sugar bowl with sugar tongs, two teacups, saucers, spoons, and plates, and a porcelain dish that was covered by a linen napkin. A small glass vase filled with a bouquet of violets completed the picture. 

Duncan unlocked Marie-Claire's room and placed the tray onto the side of her bed with a flourish. She inhaled deeply, smiled with fond recollection, and removed the linen napkin from the porcelain dish. " _Madeleines_ and tea!" she exclaimed. "Don't tell me--you got the idea from reading Proust's _Remembrance of Things Past._ No, no! I know," she teased. "You got the idea from talking to Proust himself." 

Duncan flashed her a wicked grin. "Actually, he got the idea from me." 

Marie-Claire answered with an exaggerated look of surprise on her face, "You did not!" 

She pinned him with her gaze until he squirmed and gave a little smile that wrinkled his nose and the corners of his eyes. "You win," he admitted. "I did not." She let out a little laugh of triumph. 

"Please allow me the pleasure of serving," Marie-Claire announced, reaching with her unchained left hand for the pot of linden flower tea. The thin, delicate arm of the ten-year-old body she was trapped in had difficulty lifting the full pot, and she grimaced in frustration. 

"May I?" Duncan asked gently. He poured the steaming herb tea into a cup and poised over the sugar bowl until she nodded, and he dropped in two lumps. 

Duncan poured a second cup of tea and busied himself with serving two plates of _madeleines._ When he looked up, he asked, "Why did you pick a child? Immortality is hard enough; it's even harder in a small body." 

Marie-Claire broke a bit of _Madeleine_ into her tea, submerged it briefly, then spooned it into her mouth. Her mouth twisted into a bitter smile. "Xavier asked me the same thing," she began, "Jeanne was young enough to see beyond the mundane realities of adults into the shadow region between this world and the next. She was young enough to see me when I was passing and, more important, she was not old enough to know how to resist me." She sighed and daintily touched the napkin to her lips. 

"I wasn't ready to leave this world when the time came, even if my body was, so moving into another one seemed best. Why Jeanne's? The old women of the village whispered that she was different from other people; one even said that Jeanne would live forever. I wanted to live forever. I saw myself that she healed immediately from any wounds she received. So I chose Jeanne, hoping that the old woman was right. What I didn't know was that Immortals stopped maturing. I imagined that Jeanne would reach adulthood at some point." 

They ate in silence for a while. Duncan finally ventured, "It seems that no good at all came of Viet Nam for you. Were there no good memories?" 

It did not escape Duncan's notice that she failed to mention her husband among the good memories. Instead, Marie-Claire began to describe the large house at the center of the plantation and its garden, a lovely walled place heavy with the scent of jasmine. She had tried growing roses, but the leaves darkened and mottled, twisted and drooped in the humid air of Viet Nam, much as Marie-Claire's own soul did. She stopped her description abruptly, acutely aware that MacLeod was staring at her. 

"I wish things had been different for you," he told her sadly. He gathered up the tray and left her room, locking the door behind him. 

Duncan strode past Stephen and Jake, who were seated at the kitchen table. He placed the tray heavily on the counter and let out a deep, shuddering sigh. 

"Is she ready for her next surprise?" Jake asked. Duncan nodded affirmatively without turning around. 

"I don't think we should take off the cuffs," Stephen advised. 

Jake interrupted, "It's a calculated risk, but if Duncan thinks she's ready, then we have to move. We'll be out here if he needs us." 

Duncan snatched up a large shopping bag with an elegant and tasteful logo, took a deep breath, and went back to Marie-Claire. 

"Surprise!" he said with forced cheer. "I thought you might enjoy this." 

She opened the bag to find some magazines and novels in French, a fluffy new towel, a silk bathrobe that managed not to look like it was made for a little girl, and all of the accoutrements for a long and decadent bubble bath. Her face brightened, and Duncan leaned close and whispered conspiratorially, "Promise me you'll be good." With that, he unlocked her handcuffs and made a sweeping gesture of his arm toward the bathroom door. 

Marie-Claire luxuriated in the perfumed bath long enough for the water to cool. Then she opened the drain for a few minutes and refilled the tub with more hot water. Plainly in sight of the partially opened door but carefully positioned so as not to be able to see inside the bathroom, Duncan was surprised to find himself chuckling fondly. Tessa used to do the same thing. 

A half an hour later, Marie-Claire emerged from the water. Unseen by Duncan, she dried herself and wrapped the towel around her head like a turban. She turned this way and that in front of the mirror, staring ruefully at the smooth, hairless girl-child she had trapped herself inside of. The body had held such promise when Marie-Claire saw it all those years ago-shining, dark hair, mysterious eyes, a generous mouth, the tiny budding nipples that promised to turn into lovely breasts one day. 

But one day had never come. Angrily, she turned away from the offending reflection in the mirror, wrapped the silk robe around the child-like body, and began to rub furiously at her wet hair with the towel. 

Five minutes later a combed and composed Marie-Claire re-entered the bedroom, crossed to sit on the bed, and dutifully held her right hand near the bedpost to be cuffed. 

"I'm sorry it has to be this way," Duncan told her. She turned her small hand over and held his briefly. He smoothed a lock of hair behind her ear, and then removed his hand suddenly as if he had been burned. Her eyes pleaded with him. He gave her a startled look and sat back, his face was a mask of disgust mingled with fear. MacLeod stormed from the room, slamming it hard behind him. 

In the living room, Jake and Stephen sat patiently. Duncan flew to the outside door, his emotions barely controlled, not daring to look either man in the eyes. 

"It's done," Duncan said with a harsh voice, swallowing hard against the bitter taste on the back of his tongue. 

"Remember, don't come back until 0900 tomorrow, " Jake reminded MacLeod. Then he turned to Stephen. "You're on next." And so he was; when dinner time came, Steve took a tuna salad sandwich and a soft drink into Marie-Claire's room. 

"Where's Duncan?" Marie-Claire asked in English. 

Steve drew a breath; for a moment, he thought he might have forgotten his lines, but they flooded back as he exhaled. "Duncan had to go out," he said casually. 

Marie-Claire's voice was edged with anger. "Out where?" 

He stalled for time, turning off the bathroom light, straightening magazines, and hanging up the bath towel, all of the time ignoring her repeated requests to know where Duncan had gone. Stephen calculated carefully how angry he would let her become before answering. 

"He . . . " Steve's voice trailed to nothing as he shook his head. "I probably shouldn't say anything." He waited out another angry tirade and went back to puttering around the bedroom. Marie-Claire's voice was ragged; red spots burned on her cheeks. Now was as good a time as any for the next line. 

"Look, I hate to have to tell you this, but I guess you'll find out anyway. He's having dinner with Amanda. He said he'd be back tomorrow morning," he said in his most sincere and convincing voice. "You didn't really get your hopes up, did you? Look at you. You're a little girl. You snatched the wrong body, lady." 

He dodged insults as well as food and utensils as he headed back to the living room. Marie-Claire's enraged voice leaked through the heavy door, first in English, then in French. Jake and Stephen stoically endured it for a full hour before it faded to weak sobs and weak pleas in Vietnamese. 

\--Wain 

* * *

**Round 46**

Deb returned to reality in familiar surroundings; she vaguely remembered the trip back to the apartment, as if it had happened to someone else. She shifted painfully in her chair, feeling as if her body hadn't moved in hours. The first thing she noticed was a silence both physical and mental. With a pang of anxiety, she thought she had been abandoned, until she heard a faint scrape, the shifting of a cane. "Welcome back. I was wondering how long I'd have to wait for you; did you know there's no coffee in this place?" 

Dawson. They left me with Dawson? Deb still felt confused. She was about to ask the obvious question, but suddenly stopped. Her nostrils flared, as if catching a scent-it was there, a faint echo. "You brought her here? To my home!" There was a flash of anger at the thought, a sense of violation, but none of the rage that had consumed her. 

Joe's voice was calm, "There wasn't much choice; we had witnesses. She's gone now." 

Now the question came, "Where is everyone?" 

"Gone," he repeated, a simple recitation of fact. "Amanda disappeared; the rest had something to do." He paused; "The question is, where were you?" 

Deb frowned; it was rare for her to be unable to put an experience into words. "I think," she started hesitantly, "I was looking inside myself." She shivered; "There were things in there that I didn't want to see." 

Sympathy crept into the old man's voice; "You want to talk about it?" She remembered the hatred inside herself, the dark yawning pit in her soul. She wished that MacLeod were here, he'd understand. He'd faced his own darkness more than once. 

Joe read her hesitation as clear as words; "What, you think I'm not good enough to hear your problems?" The phrase 'not good enough' struck a bit too close to home; she flinched. 

Silence reigned for a long while, before she finally spoke. "I always felt that becoming that which we despise the most was just a bad cliché. I never imagined." She trailed off again, pulling together her thoughts. "Jeanne awoke something inside of me, something I thought was gone: fear, pain, anger long past." She looked up, favouring the Watcher with a bitter smile. "I guess you know a bit how the past can come back to haunt you. I thought that I had dealt with the past, with my years as a victim, but really I had just turned my back on it. Fear left alone too long curdles into something sour in your soul, and anger simmers into a slow burning hate. 

"Growing up, I didn't exactly have a healthy self-image. I thought of myself as small, weak, powerless." 

"And then one day, someone pulls you off a morgue slab and you find out you're not so small, and not so weak." The words echoed her own thoughts, softened by a warm fatherly voice (why couldn't my father have been like that?). 

Deb nodded slowly, "Someone put a sword in my hand, showed me how to use it, and I stopped feeling powerless. But it wasn't real to me yet," she closed her eyes, took a deep breath. "We use all these words: Gathering, like it's some kind of family reunion; Game, as if people would actually follow the rules. I pretended that it was a game, a grand fantasy adventure; until this child, this tiny little porcelain doll, tells me she wants my head-she wants me dead." 

"So you were scared, there's no shame in that. Someone like Jeanne could scare anyone." Deb was shaking her head even as he said the words. 

"No, no, no! You just don't understand; yes, I was afraid, but there was something more than that. She triggered the victim in me, all the fear, all the hate, and for the first time I WANTED to kill. And that scared me more than Jeanne ever could. 

"I turned her into something less than human; I turned her into a monster. I projected all my inner demons onto her, thinking that if I got rid of her, I'd finally be free. But all I was doing was feeding the demons, making them stronger. Out there, in the storm, all that was left was the hate; I was standing on the edge of a pit, and if I had taken that last step, I think I'd still be falling." 

She looked into his eyes, searching for answers. "Does everyone have something like this inside of them, or is it just the victims? Will this happen to me every time? Am I going to be fighting my enemies-and myself-for a hundred years? For a thousand?" 

Joe heard the desperation in her voice, saw the white-knuckled grip as she knotted her hands in her lap, still wrestling with something she could barely control. He thought about the others, trying to perform a miracle on what was left of Jeanne Bac Tho; for the first time, he wondered whether his job was going to be any easier. 

\--The Ghost Cat 

* * *

**Round 47**

Driving over to Deb's, Duncan knew himself to be hanging onto his temper by the thinnest of shreds. He had to get there, have this little impossible talk with Amanda, and be back at Jake's in the morning, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, as though he'd had a wonderful evening. 

It was going to take more than a shower, this time. Deb answered her door to his impatient knock, and MacLeod practically shoved his way in. 

"I have to see Amanda." 

"She's not here." 

"Where did she go?" 

"I don't know, she. . ." 

"She just left, Mac, you know how she is. Wasn't here in the morning, the other day. Poof!" Dawson came out of the kitchen, carrying a couple of bottles of beer, and offered one to MacLeod. "Here." 

MacLeod looked at the bottle with disgust, as though Dawson had offered him half a lizard. 

"Look, it's important. I need to talk to her." 

"Talk to us. Won't we do?" Deb asked, reasonably. 

"Not for this. I need an Immortal woman who's been around for a while, and I need her tomorrow, next day at the latest. I'd like it to be Amanda." 

"Well, I don't suppose she could be out at the Mall," Joe began to think out loud. "Jake slapped another bracelet on her the other night." 

"Call Jake for me, would you? Ask if there's any way the airport security people could identify her by that bracelet, and would they hold her." 

"Why don't you call?" Joe asked. 

"I can't. I'm supposed to be having dinner with Amanda. Long story. Joe, please. A favor. I'm going to go work out for a while: I need the exercise. I've been cooped up for the best end of a week, and. . ." 

Deb heard the frustration in his voice, saw the anger in his tight gestures, and approached him, her hands out to take his. He stepped back, stuck his own hands deep into his pockets, and said, "No. Don't touch me. I'll be back in a couple of hours. Joe, please. See if you can run Amanda down for me." 

He closed the door carefully, and Deb headed to a closet for her coat. 

"Let him go. Whatever it is, there's nothing you can do about it." 

"I don't think you're quite the right person to tell me what to do in my own home!" 

"He isn't in your home. He's outside, and he's out there for a reason. Whatever it is, he has more experience at handling it than you do. Let him go." 

Turning away from her, Joe sat by the phone with the number MacLeod had scrawled for him, and began the search for Amanda. 

By three in the morning, Joe had turned her up, but MacLeod had not returned. He had walked to a park and begun methodically working his way through every kata he knew, then he broke a healthy branch to begin quarterstaff work. When he thought he might have a chance for sleep, he found a hotel by the river, hoping it would remind him of the barge, and left a call for eight o'clock. 

_"Ma vie en rose"_ kept worrying around in his mind, a stuck record he could not turn off. He was anxious to get to Paris before summer, to see the chestnut trees in bloom. It had been so long. 

\--Palladia 

* * *

**Round 48**

Thich Thi Hoang was somewhere dark and quiet; she felt like she was floating. She knew that her Amie didn't want her to come out just yet, but she wanted to very much. _Let me out,_ she had begged over and over, but Amie wouldn't let her out. 

It wasn't too different from the little dark room in the house on the d'Estaing plantation. It was her special little room, where she went when she was told that the bad men were coming. No matter how many screams she heard, she never went outside until her Amie opened the door for her. 

The people, especially the old women, in Hoang's village of Viet Doan called her "La Haine", the witch, and they said that she did bad things and that children should stay away from the plantation. Hoang understood that part, but she didn't quite understand when the adults talked about why the d'Estaings remained on their plantation even after the war came and so many others left. Hoang's foster mother and her auntie used to say that M. d'Estaing liked the pretty girls, but weren't there pretty girls in France, too? If Mme d'Estaing hated Hoang's country, then why did she stay there with M. d'Estaing? Hoang didn't understand all of it, but she learned to recognise the look that people had on their faces when they talked about the d'Estaings, hands covering their mouths as they whispered back and forth, fear and hatred in their eyes. 

After the awful day when the soldiers came, Hoang was surprised to see the same look on the villager's faces when they talked about her, too. Her foster mother and siblings were all killed that day, along with dozens of other people in Viet Doan. Hoang thought she was dead, too, but she must have fallen asleep. When she woke up, she wished that she had died with them. When she asked her auntie for a new dress to replace the one she had that was bloodied and riddled with bullet holes, her auntie was the first one to look like that at her. 

Hoang had never liked open spaces, but as the war progressed, she began to fear them. She hated the vast, flat, open fields and jungle that surrounded her village, for she never knew where the next attack might come from. She hid whenever she heard an airplane or saw a stranger-all of the soldiers were bad men for her, and any stranger might be a soldier for one side or the other. The day the soldiers did come back, firing into Viet Doan, Hoang ran and ran until she ran the skin from the soles of her feet. 

She finally collapsed from exhaustion outside the d'Estaing house and was taken inside by M. d'Estaing. Cook tried to tell Madame that Hoang shouldn't stay, but Madame told Cook to be quiet and found her a bed with the other girls who helped sew and cook and clean the house. 

Madame d'Estaing had hair that was brown and gray with funny curls in it. Her dresses covered up so much of her that Hoang used to wonder if she didn't get too hot. She didn't know why the old women of her village had talked about Madame the way they did. She was only a little bit scary. There were screams from the other girls at night, and sometimes one of the girls would go away suddenly and never come back, but Hoang didn't think that was too different from life in Viet Doan. 

Hoang was sure that Madame was really nice after all the day that the little girl hurt her finger helping Cook in the kitchen. It got better right away, like it always did, and Cook started to look at Hoang the way the people in Viet Doan did after her family died. Madame looked at her, too, but in an excited and pleased way. She sent Cook away and started to spend more time with Hoang. Madame told her that she would be Hoang's _amie,_ her friend, and that she would move out of the room with the other girls and have a big room all of her own. Her Amie gave her a new name, too, Jeanne. 

Jeanne hadn't felt so well cared for and safe since before her foster mother died. Whenever bad times would come, Amie would hide her in the little dark room and tell her not to listen to the other girls scream, because nothing would happen to her. 

Jeanne felt as if she had been hiding in that little dark room since the bad lady Debra had stabbed her with that needle in the Santa Mar'a. Amie told her it wasn't safe yet, but Jeanne wanted to come out now. _Please let me out, Amie! I don't want to be here anymore,_ she pleaded over and over again. he heard Amie screaming and crying in her angriest voice, and then Jeanne got to come back again for a while. She was glad to be out of the dark place, and she was very hungry. 

The little Immortal gave a surprised look at her surroundings. Her right hand was cuffed to a bed. She saw an open bathroom door, and she hoped someone would come soon and let her use it. At the sound of a lock in the bedroom door, she curled in fear against the headboard. Mr. Jake from the mall stood in the doorway holding a tray. 

_"Xin chào,"_ he said. _Good morning._ The smell of French toast sticks and maple syrup permeated the small bedroom. 

" _Xin chào, Anh_ Jake," Jeanne answered demurely. 

Jake moved the tray closer to her and asked in Vietnamese, "Are you hungry, Jeanne?" 

Her shining hair swung along her cheeks as she nodded a vehement yes. 

\--Wain 

* * *

**Round 49**

Duncan had put the question to Amanda with all the tact of a rhinoceros. What I'm doing is in the best interests of all concerned, he mused, so why do I feel like a pimp? 

And yet, she had agreed. She had shrugged her most Gallic shrug, and said, "What's one more?" 

They had found an ageless Chanel suit at a theatrical costumer's, a sleek creation in eggshell raw silk. A blouse in very dark blue, a bag, shoes, a hat, and in deference to Marie Claire's time, a pair of gloves completed the outfit. Duncan was a little stunned by the result, and Jake reached for a pencil. 

When they entered the room where Jeanne was staying, she looked up from a book. Simone de Beauvoir, he saw, not something Jeanne would find interesting. "I have a proposition for you, Marie-Claire. Would you like to go with us to Paris?" He held up two tickets on the Concorde. 

She could count as well as he could. 

_"Vraiment, mais. . ."_

"This is the price of Paris, Marie-Claire. And the reward. Amanda and I are old friends. Like Jeanne, she won't age. Unlike Jeanne, she's of age. A more useful vintage, you will agree. 

"I have a barge on the Seine, and an old man brings croissants in the morning. The chestnut trees will blossom this year, as they blossomed in the past, and the Rive Gauche is still an artists' colony. There is still Notre Dame, still the Louvre. . . But you must leave Jeanne." 

When the old legends spoke of the colours of dying dolphins, Duncan thought, this must be what they meant. He watched the child's face as a very adult calculation chased hatred, greed and envy across it, followed by a waking hope. 

"And you'll have to give up on killing me. I want to sleep in peace." He came up behind Amanda, circled his arms around her, familiarly, and she rested her hands on his, leaned her head back against his shoulder, smiling faintly. 

He was wondering whether to tell her that Xavier wasn't dead, not exactly, when she said, simply, _"Je suis d'accord."_

Duncan didn't want to know what happened next. He left the women to their negotiations, and looked at the drawing coming into life under Jane's hands. It was Amanda in the Chanel suit, and yet, somehow, it was different. There was the uncertainty of a woman who had never been beautiful, shading Amanda's off-handed confidence. 

When Amanda emerged from the room, she passed Duncan, going directly to Jake. She held out her wrist with the bracelet from the mall. "We're going abroad. You won't have to worry about me for a long time." 

He fished in his pocket for the coded strip of wire that would release the lock, and she reached past him to the drawing. "May I have this?" she asked him. He shook his head, turned her to face a mirror. 

"You won't need it." 

"You'll take care of Jeanne?" 

"She'll be all right. She actually _likes_ French toast and green milkshakes. She can haunt the Mall for a long time." 

"Her name is actually Thich Thi Hoang. She's probably forgotten it, by now." She rose on tiptoes, kissed Jake gently on his cheek. 

As they left, the gloved fingers she laid on Duncan's forearm were shaking, ever so slightly. 

\--Palladia 

* * *

**Round 50**

"For the last time, will you stay away from my notes!" Deb soon discovered that having a Watcher as a friend was easy compared to having one for a houseguest. "I have resigned myself to having my life be a permanent documentary, but my words are still my own unless and until I choose to share them." With Duncan refusing to talk to her, she was dealing with the events of the past few weeks the only way she knew how. Putting her experiences down in black and white seemed to have a purging effect, but that didn't necessarily mean she was ready to share them quite yet. 

Joe pulled back his hand, still gazing longingly at the scribbled pages. "There are entire libraries describing how Immortals behave, events in their lives; but we still don't know the thoughts and feelings that go with those experiences, especially in the beginning." 

Debra resisted the urge to growl at him; the last thing she needed right now was to be treated like an It, like a clinical subject. "You want to know what I'm feeling right now? I'm worried sick; my imagination's in high gear picturing everything that could go wrong in whichever hidey-hole they're keeping Jeanne. What are they doing out there? Duncan's gone for nearly a week; he blows through here like a black wind and then disappears again. Stephen's a survivor, but he's only flesh and blood, and this Jake fellow doesn't have a clue what he's gotten himself into. How long is it going to take before I have a normal life again?" 

"A normal life? Girl, there's no such thing. As for what Mac and the boys are doing," a shrug, "you've got a psychology background; how long does it take to treat a possible Multiple?" 

Deb blinked; "How did you know I took psych, and what does this have to do with MPD?" 

"You were still dead to the world when we first talked about it, but Jake thinks that the kid's being influenced by a woman named Marie-Claire d'Estaing, who wanted to live forever and found a nice young body to do it in. She just didn't know that the body wouldn't get any older. Multiple personality, or spirit possession, take your pick." 

Deb fisted her hands until the nails drew blood; calmly watching the wounds reverse themselves. "Oh, just great! Can it get any worse than this?" 

She turned on the TV to distract herself; the local news was on, and the anchor was talking about WEM. "PETA has denied any involvement in what police are still calling a terrorist attack, despite the fact that the incident took place only a few meters away from the mall's controversial dolphin and marine life displays. Several dozen mall patrons were hospitalised with chemical burns, although the quick thinking of security officer Jake Chisholm prevented any deaths or critical injuries. Mr. Chisholm has not been seen since the incident, and his disappearance may be connected to unconfirmed reports of an armed conflict in the southwest parking lot, near the Water Park. Police are asking for help from anyone who may have information." 

Deb clicked off television in annoyance, tossing the remote across the room where it bounced off a couch cushion. Dawson smiled in sympathy; "Never, ever ask if it can get any worse." 

\--The Ghost Cat 

* * *

**Round 51**

Laughter, warm and easy, followed her amusement at the joke Duncan had told her, his mouth so close to her ear that it tickled her as he spoke. His voice could not have been heard three feet away, but then, it didn't have to be. In the month they'd been in Paris, soaking it up in the day, sitting in front of the fire on the evenings of early spring, she was learning a great deal about a man who was nothing like Claude d'Estaing. 

He had noticed the slight shrinking from his touch, the nervous half-smile that tried to deflect him sometimes, and he waited. There was about him the patience of a man who had all the time in the world, and a certainty of eventual success. 

This looked like Amanda, but where Amanda was fearless and sure of his affection, Marie-Claire hesitated. And so they sat on the floor, again, in front of the fireplace, his back to a couch, she sitting between his knees, leaning back against him as though he were an armchair, trying to circle his heavy wrists with delicate fingers. 

He told her stories, things he had seen, done, the places he'd been. Each day, they showed each other the Paris they knew, and each night, as the cognac and the easy companionship worked on her, she relaxed a little more. He was teasing her, now, armed with the knowledge of centuries of practice, general as a roadmap, specific as the key to one's home. 

This night, tomorrow, next week. . . eventually, he planned to be able to enjoy her pleasure as he enjoyed Amanda's, drinking her up, driving her beyond herself, and being driven, in turn. He could always tell when something brought her husband to mind, but it happened less frequently now. He turned his hands palm up, inviting her to lace her fingers through his, traced the line of her neck from her ear to her shoulder with his mouth, and then he stopped. "It's getting late, and there's the Matisse exhibit tomorrow. Off to bed with you." 

Slowly, a bit reluctantly, he noticed, she got to her feet, but didn't wrap the robe around her again, leaving it open, invitingly. He smiled at her, wished vividly that Amanda would choose to put in an appearance, and padded off to a separate bed. 

April was coming to Paris, spreading the merest rumor of green across it, the lengthening days and softening nights would work their magic, too. It shouldn't be too much longer, he considered. Marie-Claire was going to learn about being a grown-up woman. He was just the man to teach her, he thought, complacently. 

After all, who knew Amanda's body better than he did? This was just a little change in tenancy. 

\--Palladia 

* * *

**Round 52**

After a few blustery and showery days of museums by day and long talks by night, Duncan greeted a sunny and warm morning with relief. It was time to get out of the city and get some fresh air. He told Marie-Claire to be ready by noon, no small feat, since the woman took nearly as long to get ready as Amanda herself. On the stroke of twelve precisely, he returned from shopping, packed a large picnic basket, and escorted his companion to the Citro'n. 

He kept their destination a surprise, only telling her that it was one of his favorite places. Nearly an hour outside of Paris, he pulled onto a narrow country road, drove to the top of a slight rise, and parked the car. He took the basket and Marie-Claire's hand and led her perhaps a half mile into the woods. 

Marie-Claire gasped and then clapped her hands with delight when she saw the lovely clearing in the woods. Trees stood on three sides of the clearing; the fourth had a view down the sloping hillside toward a village of small houses clustered together in the midst of freshly turned fields. 

Duncan laid a blanket out on a grassy spot in dappled sunshine. He produced from the picnic hamper a meal patterned on a grand and glorious picnic he remembered from the 1920s- _poulet en gelée,_ salad, bread, a small dish of cold shrimp with a rosy sauce, a pair of tiny chocolate tartlets, and champagne, all served on china and crystal. 

Marie-Claire hugged her knees to her chest and sighed with contentment when they had finished eating. Duncan poured her another flute of champagne -- he noticed that she drank somewhat more than Amanda-and reclined on his elbow to contemplate the early spring woods that surrounded them, the tiny leaves dotting tree branches, ferns beginning to unfurl their tight heads from the ground up, and the lovely damp scent of the new season. Marie-Claire finished her last swallow of champagne and leaned over until she was resting on her side facing Duncan. 

The warm spring breeze blew a few stray strands of hair against Amanda's mouth. Duncan gently smoothed them back into place. He brushed his thumb against her lips and gave her the briefest, softest of kisses. The tentative response confirmed Amanda's absence, but Marie-Claire soon became bolder. He reached out to touch her hand with his fingertips and slowly followed the length of her arm to her neck. 

She felt it a split second before he did, a discordant, shrieking vibration in her head. Her hands flew to her temples and she trembled in fear and pain. 

"There's someone here," he told her as he reached for his sword, pushing off the ground and turning to face the way they had come. He looked back at her, helpless and terrified, and shoved away a feeling of panic. He prayed that Marie-Claire had the sense to obey him. "Down the hill and to the right is the cemetery. It's holy ground, Marie-Claire. Wait for me there." 

She huddled wild-eyed on the blanket. "Go!" he repeated forcefully, and she pulled herself to her feet and ran. Duncan set off into the woods, katana in a guard position, cursing himself and knowing that he would never forgive himself if anything happened to Amanda. 

Marie-Claire ran down the hill, her increasing speed nearly causing her to stumble, and the force of her feet against the ground resounding in her very bones. She turned to the right and crashed through the woods, branches whipping her face and arms. Her heart pounded in her ears. _Amanda!_ she pleaded, _Help me, I'm lost!_ She strained her ears but heard nothing. Marie-Claire risked stopping and turned around in place, breathing hard and searching for the way to the cemetery. A flash of sunlight through the trees illuminated stone; she hoped against hope that it was the wall surrounding the graveyard. _Amanda!_ she cried again as she ran for salvation. 

When she cleared the tree line, relief at the sight of the cemetery walls turned to frustration and fear as she realized that she couldn't find the gate. _Where is it, Amanda?_ She guessed left and ran that way. She reached the gate as she felt once again the sensation that warned her of the other Immortal. Her hands clawed at the iron cemetery gate. It was locked. She turned her back against the wall, feeling safer that way, and reached for Amanda's sword. Marie-Claire desperately thought back to her time with Xavier. He had never taught her how to defend herself; why bother, he had asked, in a body as small as Jeanne's? Marie-Claire wrapped her hands about the hilt, hoping against hope that the familiar sensation would provoke some of Amanda's memories. She bit her lip until the blood ran freely and waited as the other Immortal's presence grew stronger. Defeated before she began, she slid down the rough stone wall, hunched on the ground with the sword tip wavering ineffectively against what was to come, and began to cry. _Amanda, help me!_

MacLeod pushed his way through saplings and fallen branches toward the cemetery. He had to reach her. The other Immortal's presence had faded away, and Duncan prayed that Amanda was safe. Clearing the tree line, he loped around the graveyard wall to the gate, where he found her at last. 

"It's about time, MacLeod," she scolded, leaning against the gate and idly wiping the unsharpened ricasso of her sword against the sleeve of her blouse. 

Relief made his knees weak. "Amanda?" he ventured. She nodded. He narrowed his eyes and looked at her sharply in an unspoken question. Once again, Amanda nodded affirmatively. 

"What took you so long?" he asked, his words tumbling out quickly. "Where's Marie-Claire?" 

"She's still around, MacLeod," Amanda told him as she walked back toward their abandoned picnic. 

Duncan safed his blade and caught up with Amanda, stopping her to envelop her in a hug. 

"She can't fight for herself." She said by way of explanation. "Frankly, I think she'll be content to go along for the ride from now on." 

"She can't fight? Jake said she'd done murder and worse," MacLeod said, judging the accuracy of those accusations by Amanda's shudder. 

"Her victims were always small and helpless, Duncan. Preying on the weak is easy. Defending yourself against equal or superior strength is different, and it's something she can't do." 

Having reached the clearing, Duncan began to pack up the picnic. Amanda was lost, gazing off into the horizon without really seeing it. He laid a hand on her forearm. 

"Is she still with you?" he asked. Amanda nodded her head up and down. "Can you handle her?" 

Amanda turned sad eyes to him. "It's not so different from a quickening, Duncan. I live with worse. You live with worse, too. She's just another voice speaking in the hurricane I carry inside me every day. Sometimes her voice is louder. Sometimes it's softer." 

They walked hand in hand through the woods toward the parked car. Duncan shook his head in amazement again. "After all those people Jake said she hurt, she really couldn't raise her sword to kill today?" 

"This was different," Amanda repeated. "It's been so long for you and me, Duncan, so long since we first had to kill in self defense, since we entered that first battle, knowing that we would live or die in the minutes that followed. I think we've forgotten how hard it was. Marie-Claire doesn't have the strength." 

They walked in silence for a long while. 

"I think that Debra has the strength to defend herself, or at least she did." Duncan raised his eyes at the change in subject. Amanda squeezed his hand in encouragement and continued, "But what happened with Jeanne might have left her unsettled. Go back to Canada, MacLeod, and talk to her." 

\--Wain 

* * *

**Round 53**

No matter what, the Mall endures Deb thought to herself with a tiny half-smile. The author had been forced to lay low for quite a while, but eventually everything calmed down. Jake Chisholm had returned to duty without a word, and on one came forward to talk about what had happened the night of the storm. The media became bored and turned to juicier targets, and even the police were forced to move on. The entire incident soon joined the ranks of Mall legend, alongside the roller coaster crash, the trapped submarine, the bank loan scandals and the dead body found floating in the artificial lake. The Mall will always endure. 

One thing you could say about the legions of staff at the mall, they were efficient. Walking down the marble and chrome corridors, you'd never know that a near-tragedy had occurred. The bulky arches of the metal-detectors were gone, leaving the mall a much friendlier place. Every scrap of decoration from Mardi Gras had been scoured away, as if everyone wanted to forget the whole thing. Never look back. 

Deb had to moderate her brisk mall-walking stride to accommodate her gentleman companion. Dawson watched her carefully, knowing that this was her first trip to the mall since the incident. He saw her eyes sliding away from the bulk of the Santa Maria, searching for anything else to focus on. Anxiety quickened her pace, and he struggled to catch up to the girl. "Are you sure you want to do this?" 

Her voice was tight; "It isn't a matter of want. I have to, or else I'll never feel a sense of closure." Her steps turned slow and hesitant as they approached the tiny oft-forgotten chapel. "Though I have to admit, I kind of wish I had better back-up on this one. No offence intended." 

"None taken. I know I'm half the man I used to be." The complete surprise of that unexpected statement shocked a burst of laughter from her lips, breaking the tension that locked her throat. 

Taking a deep breath, Debra stepped into the chapel alone. Jake was there, nodding solemnly, but she hardly noticed him. The feel of another Immortal was pulling her forward. The girl who had once been Jeanne looked up with serene calm. Her dark eyes were still older than they had any right to be, but they were different somehow. The hard calculating edge was gone. The little girl's voice was hesitant; "I know you. You tried to hurt me." 

Deb was amazed by the calm in her own voice. "You hurt me first, and you hurt a lot of other people too. People who don't get better like we do." 

For the first time, there was a look of regret on that tiny face. "It was Amie's idea; she told me I had to do it. To punish the Bad Man. But he wasn't such a bad man; and she wasn't really my friend." 

Deb reached out to stroke the silken black hair; stopped when she saw that her hand was trembling. This was so hard for her. "I know," she whispered. She paused and licked her lips; "Do you have nightmares?" The child-Immortal nodded, eyes wide. "I made you into something from one of my nightmares. I turned you into a monster, and that wasn't fair." Slowly, carefully, she knelt down beside the pew, so that she'd be closer to the child's level for what she was about to say next. "I'm going away, maybe for a long time. Do you think you could keep an eye on the place while I'm gone?" Her gesture encompassed the whole of the Mall, proud but no longer possessive. "It's very special to me." 

Deb braced herself for a sneer, for the taunting retort she still half expected. But the little girl only nodded, slowly and solemnly, as if accepting a great honour. This might be the first time in her whole life that anyone had ever given her so much responsibility. "It's very special to me, too. Uncle Jake and I will take care of it for you." Uncle Jake? Deb forced herself to hide a smile. She started to embrace the small body; then stopped. Instead, she offered her hand, an agreement between equals. 

Dawson didn't realise that he'd been holding his breath until he saw her step out of the chapel. She had changed somehow in that little room; she stood taller, walked with more confidence. "The story has an ending now?" She nodded once, without hesitation. "What's next, then?" 

She took a deep breath, squared her shoulders; "Duncan was right about one thing. If my greatest territorial instincts are triggered by a mall, then I need to broaden my horizons. It's time to go journeying." 

The old Watcher twitched a smile; "Going to see the world?" 

Her answering grin seemed to brighten her whole face. "Who needs the world when I have the Great White North at my doorstep?" She fished a shining golden dollar coin out of her packet. "Heads: I travel West to East; Tails: it's East to West." 

At the same moment she tossed the coin into the air, she felt a familiar Buzz humming in her head. Time slowed down, the coin seemed to float as it spun in a lazy arc. A sure hand plucked it from the air; Deb looked up, surprised. 

\--The Ghost Cat 

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**Round 54**

Duncan MacLeod cupped the shining coin in his strong and sure hand. He nodded greeting to his Watcher and to Jake, and smiled at the little girl, who had ducked behind Jake's legs. When she peered out, MacLeod gave her a warm, _"Xin chào."_

She stepped from behind the safety of Jake's legs again and answered, _"Xin chào."_ Duncan was relieved to see that she seemed to harbor no memory of the time the three of them-Duncan, Jeanne, and Marie-Claire-had spent in Jake's guest bedroom. The dark Immortal reached out and tousled her hair. 

He turned to Deb and placed the coin into her hand. "Would you like some company on your journey?" he asked her. 

She considered for a moment and gave a negative shake of her head. "Maybe for a little, Duncan, but I think I have to do this myself." 

"Well then, before you go on your east-to-west or west-to-east exploration, how about a little R & R with me someplace warm? I think I've had enough snow for now." 

Debra paused as if weighing his offer, hoping that the sparkle in her eyes wouldn't give her away as she teased, "I hate hot weather, Duncan." 

The light in his eyes told Debra that he had seen through her. "Then how about Tokyo?" he proposed. "The cherry blossoms are lovely at this time of year. And when you can't stand springtime in a bustling city anymore, then you can explore the Great White North to your heart's content." 

Smiling her consent, Debra picked up her bag and turned to leave with Duncan. As they left the quiet of the chapel for the noise and glitter of the mall, Duncan turned to the left and Deb grabbed his arm and pulled him right. 

"Your car's parked this way," Duncan protested. 

"Yes, it is," she replied, still tugging him to the right. "But Death By Chocolate is that way." 

\--Wain 

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Death By Chocolate Page 1   
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© 2001 Ghost Cat, Palladia, & Wain   
Please send comments to the authors! 

General Disclaimer: the concept of Immortality and any characters from the _Highlander_ universe belong to Davis/Panzer Productions, et al. No copyright infringement intended, there is no monetary gain, yadda yadda yadda. 

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